Today's title and cover of nove, "Vladimir," by Julia May Jonas.

Lust! + Podcast: More Eats 4 Less by Angela Bell

Posted on by da-AL
Today's title and cover of nove, "Vladimir," by Julia May Jonas.
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Sensuality! Passion! Fun! As writers (here’s about the novel I’m writing) and readers, only good can come of finding what sets us afire. Figuring out how to unlock the shackles of cultural conditioning can be tricky, though. Learning about groundbreaking artists and their work can helps.

For instance, take how Emma Thompson has done it again — she’s the English actress who forever reaches further and further. By this, I’m not merely referring to the storyline of “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande.” In it, a 50ish recently widowed woman decides that, once and for all, she’s going to have good sex. She hires a twenty-something male prostitute.

What’s beyond incredible is the fact that we’ve never before seen this story on-screen — and why not? Why are post-menopausal woman who desire sex seen as aberrant, laughable, and even despicable?

Check out the film’s equally ground-breaking humanizing of a male sex worker who, moreover, isn’t repulsed by older women.

“Vladimir,” by Julia May Jonas, (which I recently finished in audiobook format and to which Rebecca Lowman lent a superb narration) offers a reckoning of sexuality. That of everyone, including love and relationships, both public and private. Aren’t the title and cover great, especially as it’s a literary novel, not the saucy romance genre implied?

The protagonist is a college prof in her 50s who has an open marriage with her college prof husband. We enter the story when he’s accused of overstepping his authority because he used to have trysts with students. Even though the rendezvous were with consenting women in their twenties and older, and they occurred before the college had instituted regulations against it, he’s about to lose his job. So there’s that.

And then there’s how the wife is judged because she neither sides against him nor divorces him. Not that anyone knows it, she’s had extra-marital relationships with men of all ages. Then there’s how their adult lesbian daughter judges the parents. There are also the students, the faculty… And in walks beefy Vladimir, who throws the protag into lust overdrive.

My review for Amazon and Goodreads (by the way, do you use Goodreads or anything like it?):

Julia May Jonas takes risk after risk with this novel and beckons us to — ooh lala — dare I say it? — think!

What do you think about how older women are portrayed?

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Happiness Between Tails speaks to and from the heart. It connects lovers — of pets, authors, books — and of my still-unreleased novels, “Flamenco + the Sitting Cat” and “Tango + the Sitting Cat.” The stories are my love letters to all who fear they're too odd, too damaged, too old, too whatever to find happiness. ContactdaAL@gmail.com • BuyMeACoffee.com/SupportHBT

34 thoughts on “Lust! + Podcast: More Eats 4 Less by Angela Bell”

  1. Compared to older men who are often characterized as normal when they take that second, third, or more often than that chance older women to me need to fight fight much harder for that privilege

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  3. The first thing I thought of when you asked the question was…how many older actresses still report they can’t get roles, they aren’t writing roles for women their age, etc. Leading men can grow older, but their co-star love interest cannot. As for reviews, I do read Amazon and Goodreads…more like I skim them…don’t what to hear too much detail/spoilers, but it does allow me to better determine if a book might appeal to me.

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    1. I’ve heard that too — tho it does give me hope that as America ages, so do it’s acting roles. tx for the info on amazon & goodreads – how do you find new books to read?

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  4. Oddly enough, I can’t immediately think of any really good movies I’ve seen which focused on the sexuality of older women. Carol was an outstanding film, but Cate Blanchett’s character was only in her forties; her partner was 19, but the age gap never seemed to be much of an issue. There was also Harold and Maude, in which the female lead was actually elderly. Although her relationship with a much younger man was depicted sympathetically, I didn’t like the movie because she also constantly did things that hurt other people (such as stealing cars) while being completely oblivious to the harm she was doing, and on the whole she came across as mentally ill. In general romances aren’t my favorite genre, so I just don’t see all that many of them. Certainly if Good Luck‘s protagonist has reached her fifties without ever having an orgasm (per the trailer), there are serious issues.

    Vladimir: The professor is “accused of overstepping his authority because he used to have trysts with students”. Professors do this more than most people realize. Trust me on this. If he has an “open marriage”, presumably that wouldn’t be a problem, but the college authorities would go apeshit, assuming the novel is set in an Anglosphere country.

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    1. good points — I read Carol, didn’t see the movie, but Cate Blanchett would be captivating at any age. Harold & Maude I think has to be taken in context of era – Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast Tiffany’s (book far far better) stole too, but I think it had to do with a grand artistic brushstroke to signify throwing off societal norms. As for Vladimir book, it has it’s problems, but I admire that the author tackled a lot of touchy subjects that are seldom brought up intelligently

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