Dear Monica Lewinsky - by Julia Langbein (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A novel about a middle aged court stenographer who must reexamine an ill-advised affair she had with a professor during the summer of the Monica Lewinsky scandal"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of American Mermaid ("Sublime"--NYTBR) comes a wise, funny, and wildly original examination of female desire and the price women pay for giving in to their appetites.

"Langbein has the uncanny ability to make a reader laugh out loud again and again while also laying bare -- in her brilliant, singular way -- the specific travail of being a young woman." --Claire Lombardo, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had

"Comic novels with heft are the rarest stars in the literary firmament, and this one burns as brightly as the sun." --Katy Hays, author of Saltwater

Forty-five-year-old Jean Dornan cannot escape the shadow of something she did several decades ago. On a study abroad program to France in the summer of 1998, she embarked on a deeply inappropriate relationship with her professor. When the professor contacts her out of the blue to invite her to his retirement ceremony, she is jolted from her malaise and filled with the need to understand why the affair derailed her life.

Rereading her old diaries, she is shocked to realize her relationship with the professor occurred during the summer of the Lewinsky scandal, yet she never saw the parallels. In a frenzy of guilt and regret, she finds herself praying to Monica Lewinsky--as if she were some kind of secular saint, the patron of persecuted and demonized women, perhaps?--and begging Monica's forgiveness for not understanding everything they had in common. To her shock, Saint Monica appears to her--like a saucy Ghost of Christmas Past--and leads her back in time to reassess what happened. Had Jean merely been weak, stupid, blind, as she has told herself for years? What was it about her that led her into the affair? What did she really do that summer?

Told in flashbacks of those sunlit six weeks that changed Jean's life and interspersed with irreverent accounts of real female martyrs and visitations from Saint Monica offering insight about Jean's younger self, Dear Monica Lewinsky is a tender, hilarious, and thought-provoking examination of desire and how it shapes us. It is also a timely examination of what grace and forgiveness look like in our lives and throughout history.

Review Quotes

"What a wild, wonderful essential novel this is. Julia Langbein has the uncanny ability to make a reader laugh out loud again and again while also laying bare -- in her brilliant, singular way -- the specific travail of being a young woman."
--Claire Lombardo, bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had and Same As It Ever Was

"An original, tender, and outrageously funny novel about hunger, desire, and the vulnerable (sometimes shameful) moments that make us, Dear Monica Lewinsky is a miracle. With incomparable tact and warmth, Julia Langbein achieves the impossible: balancing humor, consequence, and an irresistible ensemble of personalities against the glittering backdrop of a French summer. Comic novels with heft are the rarest stars in the literary firmament, and this one burns as brightly as the sun."
--Katy Hays, New York Times bestselling author of Saltwater

"Hilarious, poignant, and exquisitely written, Dear Monica Lewinsky is a wholly original feminist ode. Langbein balances academic satire and emotional excavation, all with her signature wink. I'm obsessed with her mind."
--Emily Habeck, author of Shark Heart

About the Author

JULIA LANGBEIN, a sketch and standup comedian for many years, holds a doctorate in art history and is the author of the novel American Mermaid as well as a nonfiction book about comic art criticism. She has written about food, art, and travel for Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Eater, Salon, Frieze, and other publications, receiving a James Beard Award for her essay "Market Volatility." A native of Chicago, she lives outside of Paris with her family.