Dear Monica Lewinsky

Dear Monica Lewinsky by Julia Lanbein Pre-Order April 14th 2026

From the acclaimed author of American Mermaid, Julia Langbein delivers Dear Monica Lewinsky, a wildly original, darkly comic, and tender novel exploring female desire, guilt, and the price women pay for following their appetites. Perfect for readers who enjoy witty, thought-provoking contemporary fiction with historical and cultural insight.

Jean Dornan, now forty-five, has lived in the shadow of a decades-old affair with her professor during a study abroad in France in 1998. When he suddenly contacts her to attend his retirement ceremony, Jean is forced to confront the choices that shaped her life. Rereading her old diaries, she realizes her affair coincided with the Lewinsky scandal—and she never recognized the parallels.

In a hilarious and surreal twist, Saint Monica appears to Jean, guiding her through past mistakes and societal judgments, helping her reassess guilt, desire, and self-perception. Told in luminous flashbacks and irreverent historical interludes, Dear Monica Lewinsky is a story of forgiveness, female agency, and the complexities of desire.