Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes

by Hannah Moscovitch

Jon, a star professor and author, is racked with self-loathing after his third marriage crumbles around him when he finds himself admiring a student--a girl in a red coat. The girl, nineteen-year-old Annie, is a big fan of his work, and also happens to live down the street. From their doorways to his office to hotel rooms, their mutual admiration and sexual tension escalates under Jon's control to a surprising conclusion that will leave you wanting to go back and question your perceptions of power as soon as you finish.

Genres: Plays, Audiobook, Theatre, Fiction, Canada, Drama, Feminism

96 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm currently sitting in a canadian air bnb that's worth $2 million. i have a view of the water from my window. the sunlight is hitting my hair. i'm munching on a timmy hortons and taking sips of my london fog.

i'm hungover and am currently running on 3 hours of sleep. i have work in 4. we're not even close to the u.s. border. i'm choosing to read a book about a teacher and student ilicit affair to start off my morning.

life's fucking great.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't heard of this play nor its playwright till about a week ago, when it was announced it would be produced off-Broadway soon starring Hugh Jackman and nepo baby Ella Beatty, which is what impelled me to read it. It's a fascinating play with a clever twist at the end, which unfortunately makes little sense.

I'm wondering how that particular production will be received (for one thing Jackman is 14 years older than the 42 the character is SUPPOSED to be, which I think would greatly change the dynamic depicted - and his golden reputation has been a bit sullied by the recent divorce of his wife of decades allegedly due to an affair with Sutton Foster).

The play itself revolves around an exemplary popular writer/teacher, who begins an affair with one of his 19-year-old students. A postscript by the playwright is problematic in that she states MANY people misinterpret the play to feel that Jon is not quite so culpable as one would suspect and even see the student as something of a Lolita-like temptress, which was definitely NOT her intent - but that she's 'OK' with that. If she was attempting to pinpoint only the man as the one whose conduct is awry, perhaps she should have called it 'Sexual Misconduct of the Middle-Aged Male'.

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes", by Hannah Moscovitch, is one of those texts that promise moral discomfort but ultimately go nowhere. Everything seems calculated to suggest depth — silences, broken sentences, pauses filled with nothingness — but the emptiness quickly reveals itself to be structural. The characters have no substance or thought; the teacher is a walking cliché of existential crisis and the student a ghost of intentions. Everything happens without anything really happening.

Even with Hugh Jackman's intense performance, the result is anaemic. The narrative leaps are abrupt, the characters' motivations dissolve, and the attempt at ambiguity between victim and aggressor sounds like a writing exercise, not a human dilemma. In the end, one is left with the feeling of theatre that shies away from naturalism for fear of the truth, and ends up merely shying away from life.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, about time! I've read a lot of fiction books by acclaimed male authors which incorporate and normalize male gaze and patriarchy, this play indeed cleverly turns the well-trodden trope of older man in position of power and authority having sex with a much younger girl on its head. The female student Annie is nineteen so not underaged but the power imbalance in the dynamics of the relationship is obvious (and breaks university policy rules). Through much of the play, we are following Jon's POV but as Hannah Moscovitch points in her postscript notes for future productions, the key to understanding how to play Annie is in scene 10 (I went back to reread that). That the playwright had to put in a postscript explaining to the apologists of men like Jon really says something about the state of our society.

[Meaghan Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know what, I may need more distance from this.

Anyways, Hannah Moscovitch did it again, love her, really showing why she is one of Canada's best playwrights. Want to see a production imminently.

[Cameron Rhoads · Rating 5 out of 5]

1.12 hours on Audible, staring Hugh Jackman (Logan, Wolverine). Well done and striking.

[luna · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A finalist for the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for drama."

This is a play that primarily follows the POV of a male professor and author, Jon Macklem. Later, the play shifts to reveal the POV of Annie, a nineteen-year-old student of Jon.

With Jon’s third marriage in shambles, Jon finds himself admiring “a girl in [a] red coat” – his nineteen-year-old student (and neighbour), Annie. Excited to be in Jon’s class, Annie expresses her admiration for Jon’s written work, and ultimately their mutual admiration brings the pair together.

The events that unfold are layered with emotions, laced with power, and conflicting apologetic behaviour. Although Jon and Annie's relationship contains no illegal activities (and the playwright outlines that their relationship is consensual), this play investigates Jon's professional sexual misconduct. It explores the dynamics of power, but most remarkably, playwright Hannah Moscovitch sheds light on the perception of power.

“This play is not a love story.
The only person who's in a love story is Jon Macklem.”

For those interested in reading, I recommend finishing the read with the Playwright's Note For Future Productions. As mentioned by another reviewer, Moscovitch highlights scene ten as a key to understanding Annie.

[Haiden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn. This play goes HARD
First time I've read Moscovitch, and it's no surprise she's internationally acclaimed, along with an award winning playwright here in Canada. Flipping the male teacher, female student story on it's head in a unique and subversive way just masterfully. Her dialogue is so much about what is unsaid rather than what is, and leaves a lot of ambiguities for each performance to interpret. That tied with the fact that was is said is funny, heartbreaking, SUPER unsettling, and just charged with emotion, and all tied together in a tight-knit play with an exceptional ending that makes me want to read it again immediately after finishing. *Chefs Kiss*

[alysa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was genuinely taken aback by how much I liked it, especially with the context of playwright's note. I thought the fact that Annie is 19, of legal age, and that it is told in the perspective of Jon is really interesting and adds a new uncomfortable layer to their whole relationship. It wasn't life-changing or incredibly deep, but I do think it was unique in it's telling.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending of this really floored me. An interesting reflection on who owns the narrative. Would love to see it performed.

The language about setting really bothered me - fire escape, college and condo against porch, footpath and imagery of an Australian summer. Was I in America or Australia?

[Lady Jane Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well that ending hit me like a truck. Hannah Moscovitch 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[Aaron Eichler · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was well written, but the topic was cringe worthy. There was nothing legally wrong because both people were adults, but there was an ethical issue that she was his student.

[Juan Rivera · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel returns to a story we’ve seen far too often: the married professor who falls in love with his beautiful, gifted student. He promises he will leave his wife, even starts the process… but when the moment of truth arrives, he discovers his wife is pregnant. He breaks things off with the student, and years later he meets her again, now with a promising career, and tells her he really was in love with her.

What the book makes very clear is that she was the one truly in love: he was her idol, her reference figure, and that asymmetry of power and admiration marks the whole relationship. It’s not just a romance; it’s a deeply unequal bond between professor and student that leaves scars.

Reading it, I couldn’t help asking myself: why does this story keep repeating, and why don’t we ever learn? I saw something very similar first-hand when I was at university, so it doesn’t feel like fiction to me, but like something sadly common.

A well-written, uncomfortable book that leaves more questions than answers — that’s why it’s a 3-star read for me.

[Beckie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I want the two hours of my life back that I wasted on listening to this audible original. The fact that Hugh Jackman narrated it just makes it even worse because now anytime I try to watch one of my beloved X-Men movies, caring his voice is going to remind me of this story and I'm going to have the same and voluntary gag reflex as when My college boyfriend broke up with me and I was so upset that I tossed my lunch box in the trunk of my car and a year later, discovered the totally badass vintage '80s, near mint condition my little pony thermos I bought was still full of canned peaches and cottage cheese that I had packed the day he broke up with me. I had to throw away the whole thermos and sacrifice something I once held dear because it had been forever tainted and there was no coming back from it.

The audio presentation alone was enough to make me rage scream at my phone the last 45 minutes of the story because EVERY FUCKING SENTENCE had that god AWFUL pregnant pauses that could have given birth to an entire damn nation! It didn't come across as character depth or sexual tension or fear. It felt like bullshit predictable attempts to be coy but it came off as two people with ADHD and a junior high comprehension of verbal skills trying to write a scene that I'm assuming was supposed to have been sexy.

The male character came off as a budding middle-aged soon to be divorced incel womanizer and the female character came off as this pick-me girl wannabe Lolita In one of the oldest and insufferably offensive plots of "troubled record man seduced by Young promising student Who teaches her the ways of sexuality and opens her eyes to the world only to regret that which he has awakened in her."

The fact that the "me too" movement was called into question later on and he had to stop and wonder if their sexcapade had been consensual actually offended me and I had to walk away from the book for a while. It felt entirely dismissive and disrespectful to actual victims who came forward at great risk to their personal and professional safety. mentioning the movement did nothing for the plot, had nothing to do with a characters and it felt like an attempt to name drop something significant to cause false tension in the plot.

The fact that he looked her up and followed her career feels creepy and slimy and the entire section about him calling her up and wanting to meet with her at a hotel felt very much akin to the Hulu TV show "A Teacher" when the female sexual predator tried to meet up with her former student after she ran into him at the grocery store.

I felt like this story couldn't decide if he was supposed to go full on predatory, full-on misogynistic alcoholic womanizer, or if this was just a bad attempt at writing smut. I foolishly added the book to my library without reading what it was about and that's entirely my fault because, based on the title and other profeminist and women's studies related books that have been recommended to me in the past, I thought this book was going to be a piece of nonfiction talking about something related to attempting to better society amid continuing situations of sexual inequality in culture.

This was like smut, If smut was generic Captain crunch cereal and you ran out of milk so you just added water and had to force every bite down with long pauses that caused me to literally scream "GET TO THE FUCKING POINT ALREADY!" at least a dozen and a half times.

By the time the "plot twist' was shoved in at the very last second like a fat kid in a carpool He wasn't invited to, the whole mental gymnastics of breaking the fourth wall with meta intentions just felt like a self-indulgent handjob on a stage for an audience that already fell asleep 5 minutes after the curtains opened.
I believe every book should teach you something when you read it. The lesson I learned from this is to always read the descriptions going forward. I have absolutely NO idea Why audible would have recommended this to me in a million years.
Maybe I missed the entire point of the story, But if I did, I don't want to waste any more of my life waiting for someone to explain it to me.

[Dale S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hannah Moscovitch’s Strindbergesque “Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes,” from 2020

Jon, a college professor in the midst of a marital separation, who finds himself entranced by a student in a red coat, Annie, who sits in the front row of his class. As Jon narrates his increasing obsession with her, Jon, exerting his familiar self-deprecating charm. He asks with jovial concern if the people in the balcony can hear him, and, whenever Jon takes a wrong step, he assures us, speaking in the third person, of his reluctance to go further. After Annie shows up on his porch, Jon ushers the nineteen-year-old inside, and the audience sucks in its breath. Jackman holds up his hands in mock surrender: “Well, this, he recognized, was very bad.”

Jon frequently tells us how brilliant and capable Annie is, but in her breathy pauses she seems more like a person stunned into incomprehension. Jon primarily worries that he is treating Annie as a figure in a story—her red coat certainly suggests that he is a wolf. The very first anecdote he shares sets us to wondering if, despite his constant self-questioning, he might not be a good guy. “A few weeks ago, the janitor forgot to unlock the men’s toilet before office hours,” Jon says. “So he’d had to urinate into his thermos.” The symbolism isn’t subtle.

Moscovitch, in an interview about her play for the CBC, drew parallels between the Jon-Annie relationship and the Clinton-Lewinsky affair—in both, questions abound about the limits of consensuality when a man sleeps with a young woman who has far less power. Moscovitch says she chose the word “misconduct” for the title to skewer the characterization of such encounters as sexual peccadilloes, rather than, as she believes, episodes of coercion or assault. The play is slippery on this point. Moscovitch uses the structure of Strindbergian psychodrama—woman versus man—to reveal a gap in language itself. In her construction, nothing Annie says, including her statements of desire, indicates whether she’s actually able to consent.

I had hard time keeping my interest in the play. I thought the symbolism was weak!

[Angela Christison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great audio performance 5/5
The story is one we’ve heard/ seen before , the perspective of the story made me listen to it twice and I Really want to give this a 4, however I feel like there is so much more that isn’t answered and I want to know more, I want more depth into the characters vs surface level cliches. I think this would be a great play as you would get more from the silences , emotions and body language which might what is lacking for me.
I did enjoy this throughly and it made me think about the characters beyond the story which to me are all good signs of a well written story. I’d be interested to do this with a book club to evoke conversation.

[Leila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to a NYT article about this play last year and honestly Hugh Jackman’s involvement is what pulled me in. I do think this would have been better to see on stage vs in audiobook format but it was nonetheless an interesting commentary on a relationship between an older man and his much younger student. Though Annie seems to consent throughout their relationship, the implications of the power dynamic at play are clear (and she thus proceeds with a much different mindset than does her professor). The twist at the end really made the book for me! (And Hugh Jackman did a great job playing this difficult role, as did Ella Beatty).

[Meaghan Delaney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Knowing the key to the play was going to be found in scene 10, I’m pleased with myself for having correctly predicted the twist on page 11.

Not to my taste, as a story, and in a similar vein to the other Canadian plays I’ve read. My favourite part was the playwright’s note at the end, explaining how she intends the play to be interpreted. But I’m also not a director, and don’t have the experience to visualize, or to have read “enough” plays that this would be a play that I would feel interested in doing.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

The dialogue in this play just flows so well, the formatting so cleverly designed. And Jon is such an interesting pervert, so articulate and seemingly intelligent but also so so very shallow in his approach to the world and especially to women. He admits this himself, Annie to him is no more than a trope. Of course the circular nature of the play revealed at the end is also quite clever, with the whole play really being a reflection of Annie’s rather than Jon’s. It really re-contextualizes many scenes in the play for me.

[Karin Baxter · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 / 5, rounded up for GR.
This was a quick, easy listen, available for those with access to the Audible Plus catalogue. While I liked Hugh Jackman's narration, I thought the FMC was majorly lacking in their delivery. I also, personally, don't care for the sound effects (e.g. the sound of someone mowing their lawn or drinking a beverage) and find them both unnecessary and distracting.

The narrative itself was interesting enough, and I thought the ending reached a satisfying conclusion. However, I wasn't blown away by this one, unfortunately.

[Bita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes by Hannah Moscovitch and truly enjoyed it. Even though the twist at the end was somewhat predictable, I loved how the story unfolded. It’s a familiar yet powerful narrative — a man in a position of power taking advantage of a younger woman. In the age of the #MeToo movement, this story still feels urgent and necessary. No matter how many times women tell it, it’s never enough, because exploitation and abuse of power continue to happen around the world. Moscovitch captures this reality with honesty, nuance, and emotional depth.

[Jessica Smut Queen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

Listened via Audible, and honestly… Hugh Jackman was the main event. His performance carried this for me. His voice, delivery, and emotional control made it way more engaging than I think it would’ve been on the page. 🎧🎭

The story itself was interesting and uncomfortable in a very intentional way, but it didn’t fully land for me. I’m glad I listened, and I enjoyed the experience, but it wasn’t something I walked away obsessed with.

Overall: worth it for the audiobook, worth it for Hugh Jackman, solid but not a standout story for me.

[Jemma Bradford · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quickie about a complicated quickie, but the real tension lies in who controls the narrative at the end. Hugh Jackman and Ella Beatty give an excellent performance. There’s something darkly funny about how men overestimate their impact, especially if sex is involved, ego mistaking itself for relevance, conking out when they hear something that no longer aligns with them. The final ten minutes had my blood boiling as it edged closer to the end, however the play left on a satisfying note.

If you don't have an hour to spare, listen to Lorde's Writer In the Dark - same vibe!

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play is a theatrical version of a campus novel--a genre which seemingly disproportionately involves middle-aged male writers seducing female students. One twist is that this play premiered shortly after the rise of the #MeToo movement, so that's a clear and important context for this play and the events that occur. The other twist comes at the end of the play, and I won't spoil it here. But basically it increases how much we should be questioning the reliability of the narrator, Jon.

Jon is an established and successful novelist and professor, but when his third marriage hits the rocks, he begins an affair with Annie, a nineteen year old in one of his classes. They have an extended affair in secret, but when Jon's estranged wife tells him that she's pregnant with his child and wants to get back together to raise the baby, Jon breaks off the affair with Annie. The play is basically told from Jon's perspective, with him narrating how he sees things, and us only being able to glean Annie's perspective from what she says in the sections where we see them interacting.

In terms of what Annie (and Jon, to a lesser extent) says, this play reminds me of Pinter, where a lot of the meaning is contained in what characters don't say--which Annie actually brings up (29-30). She says she's nervous because in an interview she'd seen, Jon said we often gets distracted by what people aren't saying. And much of the dialogue in this play consists of partially articulated sentences, empty spaces that allow the characters and the audience to interpret, or to fill in the gaps with what they want/expect to hear.
https://youtu.be/FqRrY2uR7ok

[Jayrchase · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audible version of this play. I thought the buildup was typical three star fare, but around the middle of the play, the girls voice, demeanor… everything about her changed and I decided to hang in there. The ending sealed the deal… five stars.

I felt that the female writer did a better job with the male lead all the way to the last scene. Nowthst I think about it, that may have been necessary to carry the story. (I’d like to meet the author snd ask her… 😁)

[Bill Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful and provocative…but too bad that an author’s note is still needed to insure that the viewer/reader doesn’t misunderstand her (what seems to me) obvious meaning and intention. From some of the reviews and commentary I’ve read regarding the current New York production of the play, misunderstanding unfortunately abounds.

[Rich Thornton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author tells an emotional story of a college professor who is a well known author and a student of his who he is drawn to in the middle of his separation from his wife. The two narrators are perfect for their roles and the music and sound effects are very good also. It kept me listening until the very end.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the Audible Original version narrated by Hugh Jackman and Ella Beatty, and they both did a great job bringing the story to life. The way they gauged their voices kept things interesting from start to finish. It's a very short audiobook, but by the end, it feels complete and satisfying.

[Jordan Kolby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This play was very good. The subject matter is unsettling and focuses on a power imbalance. Both performances were great. I also found it very interesting how the events were told through Jon's perspective. I did think the plot was a little bit predictable, but I still enjoyed listening to it. It didn't change my life but made for easy listening on a cold, dreary winter's day.

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

All these super-deep reviews about the male gaze and the patriarchy, so here I am to say how... well, it was Hugh Jackman talking explicitly about sex. Five stars for that. The play was entertaining and well written. I'm just too immature to get over my previous statement.