Don’t be fooled – or put-off – by the cover of Julia May Jonas’s debut novel, Vladimir. Sure, it looks like something featuring Fabio but it is in fact a twist on campus-lit.

The 58-year-old unnamed narrator is a popular English professor at a small liberal arts college in New England. Her charismatic husband, head of department at the same college, is under investigation for a number of inappropriate relationships with former students, that had taken place decades prior. Although the couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extra-marital pursuits, the allegations sit uncomfortably in the present day where the #MeToo movement has created a new paradigm.

At one point we would have called these affairs consensual, for they were, and were conducted with my tacit understanding that they were happening. Now, however, young women have apparently lost all agency in romantic entanglements. Now my husband was abusing his power, never mind that power is the reason they desired him in the first place. Continue reading →