Vladimir

by Julia May Jonas

I ask this one thing: let me go mad in my own way.

If I can’t be a woman who is effortlessly beautiful, I wish I could be one of those women who, gracefully or ungracefully, move through the world unconsciously, with a kind of peace about their physical form. I have never had that peace, I have always felt tortured about my looks.

As I passed out of the room he let me know that I’d neglected to pluck the reoccurring hair that had, in the last few years, begun to sprout perpetually from my chin.

Oh we would have to fight

She told us she was queer, attracted to men still, and that she would appreciate if we didn’t label her one way or another. She was Sid. Fine, fine, fine. As long as whatever she chose, she wouldn’t have to take on the identity of the anxious woman who got dinner on the table while the men sat on the porch. As long as she didn’t have to act the part of the schoolmarm to a good-natured rascal of a partner who did whatever he liked and was loved more because of it. And if she did choose to cook or clean or worry, at least she could maybe do all those things for a woman who understood, not a man who, by virtue of being born with a thing between his legs, had absorbed from an early age that it was all right to sit back and enjoy being served.

you have ideas about what you want and ideas about what will make you happy. I’m so glad for that. I’m so glad you know what you want. I’ve never had a clue. I’ve wanted people, I’ve wanted acclaim, but it’s all turned out so lukewarm. Other than being your mother, which has been the most unmixed and positive part of my life, it’s all been a series of ups and downs, and I don’t expect any more.”

As if men who took advantage of women ever thought about how those women perceived them.

The more he spoke the more frustrated I became. It was so like John to come in with solutions without taking the time to see what I wanted or how I was feeling.

Just like a man to believe a woman had to keep her behavior in line while also churning out a work of genius.

Sometimes it will feel like old times, like when I put on a few pounds and would force myself to wear my tightest pants, no matter how they chafed or dug, as a form of punishment.

Recently I’ve been thinking about the book as a cautionary tale about the way we construct stories: stories about ourselves, about each other, about society, about our past and future—and how those stories prevent us from accurately seeing other people and the world as it truly is. Every character in Vladimir is guilty of making up a story, or putting on a filter, that obscures the truth of the situation and the reality of the other. The narrator becomes so swept away by her own story (we could call it a fantasy), and the desire to make that story a reality that she crosses a threshold, causing real harm. But all of the characters do this—all humans do this, in fact, and this presupposition can be at best distancing, and at worst, very dangerous.