Mona Acts Out: A Novel

by Mischa Berlinski

Overview

“What a treat, what an absolute delight this warm, funny novel is. … [Berlinski]’s written a sharp analysis of something dark, and he’s made it a pure pleasure to read.”—Constance Grady, Vox

“The journey of Mona Acts Out is insightfully, entertainingly multitudinous."—Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times

"Extravagantly brilliant and darkly funny.”—Ann Levin, Associated Press

"Rhapsodic and enlightening about Shakespeare, full of fun on every page, Mischa Berlinski’s Mona Acts Out is an early literary delight of 2025."—Marion Winik, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"Sharp-witted and weighty. …Berlinski deserves a standing ovation for this bravura performance."—Publishers Weekly

Celebrated stage actress Mona Zahid wakes up on Thanksgiving morning to the clamor of guests packed into her Manhattan apartment and to a wave of dread: her in-laws are lurking on the other side of the bedroom door; she’s still fighting with her husband; and in just a few weeks she will begin rehearsals as Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, the hardest role in theater. In an impulsive burst, Mona bounds out the door with the family dog in tow (“I forgot the parsley!” is her lame excuse) to find her estranged mentor, Milton Katz, who was recently forced out of the legendary theater company he founded amid accusations of sexual misconduct. Mona’s escape turns into an overnight adventure that brings her face-to-face with her past, with her creative power and its limitations, and ultimately, with all the people she has ever loved.

Beguilingly approachable and intricately constructed, at once funny and sad and wise, Mona Acts Out is a novel about acting and telling the truth, about how we play roles to get through our days, and how the great roles teach us how to live.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324095200
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	01/21/2025
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Mischa Berlinski is the author of Fieldwork, a finalist for the National Book Award, and Peacekeeping. He has written for the New York Review of Books, Men’s Journal, and Harper’s Magazine, and his writing has appeared in Best American Essays and Best American Travel Writing. He lives in Istanbul.

Editorial Reviews

★ 2024-09-28
A celebrated Shakespearean actress spends Thanksgiving rather differently than expected.

Berlinski follows acclaimed novels set in Thailand (Fieldwork, 2007) and Haiti (Peacekeeping, 2016) with a New York–based comedy of manners and morals featuring a brilliantly imagined female protagonist, Mona Zahid, one of the stars of a Shakespearean theater troupe based in the East Village. Until recently, the company was led by legendary director Milton Katz, but an article in theNew York Times, filled with accusations of misconduct from a slew of actresses, led to his disgrace. Mona, herself “an out-and-out, unabashed Miltophile,” was not among the accusers. We meet her as she awakens in her Morningside Heights apartment on Thanksgiving Day to a full house—in addition to her surgeon husband, teenage son, and canine companion Barney, her in-laws and her college student niece, Rachel, are milling about. Absent is Rachel’s mother—Mona’s sister, Zahra—who died less than a year earlier, leaving Mona a stash of 150 pain pills of which there are now only six. Mona starts her day by taking two. Not long after, she hears the assembled family members begin to argue about Milton Katz and Donald Trump. She knows she should go out and save the day, but by then she has vaped some weed so strong she suspects it of being laced with “hallucinogenic toad drippings” and can only bring herself to put Barney on his leash and race out the front door, claiming she’s off to buy parsley. At this point the novel takes an amazing left turn; suffice to say, Mona will not be home for dinner. Readers who know their Shakespeare will thrill to Berlinski’s brilliant distillation of the power and relevance of the plays and characters, but those who don’t will find they can easily come along for the ride. And a great ride it is.

Wonderfully constructed, witty, warm, wise, and filled with an extraordinary sense of the relation between theater and life.

Kirkus Reviews

"It’s unlikely fodder for a comic novel, yet Berlinski (Fieldwork, Peacekeeping) pulls it off, laughing not at Milton’s trespasses but at the ridiculousness of being human — especially in the theater, and especially in New York. As Mona’s sidekick, the joy-seeking Barney is like a furry little clown. . . . Like Susan Choi in Trust Exercise, Berlinski has an intricate understanding of the dynamics of predation, the psyches of performers and the culture of theater, particularly the grittier, convention-trampling downtown variety. . . . The journey of Mona Acts Out is insightfully, entertainingly multitudinous."— Laura Collins-Hughes New York Times

"What a treat, what an absolute delight this warm, funny novel is — which is a particular triumph because it is, in some ways, a Me Too novel.... With Mona Acts Out, Berlinski has pulled off the opposite feat. He’s written a sharp analysis of something dark, and he’s made it a pure pleasure to read."— Constance Grady Vox

"Extravagantly brilliant and darkly funny. . . . Berlinski, the author of Fieldwork, a National Book Award finalist, has written a tour de force of a novel. Read it for its utterly convincing portrayal of female sexual desire. For its nuanced depiction of the aftermath of #MeToo, including the generational differences between Mona’s middle-age cohort and younger women like Rachel who, in real life, brought down Harvey Weinstein and so many others. But most of all, read it for Berlinski’s dazzling insights into how Shakespeare offers us mere mortals a playbook for every season of life."— Ann Levin Associated Press

"Rhapsodic and enlightening about Shakespeare, full of fun on every page, Mischa Berlinski’s Mona Acts Out is an early literary delight of 2025."— Marion Winik Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"Berlinski wields details that brilliantly highlight the grey areas between polarizing absolutes."— Shelf Awareness

"A doyenne of downtown theater impulsively leaves her family on Thanksgiving morning, dog in tow, for a daylong Manhattan odyssey, during which she reflects on aging, Shakespeare and the post-#MeToo shift in sexual politics that embroiled her mentor in a career-ending scandal."— New York Times, "20 Books Coming in January"

"Sharp-witted and weighty... Mona’s thoughts are laced with scathing humor and piercing insight into the actor’s craft, resulting in a surprisingly moving exploration of the courage required to play life’s many roles. Berlinski deserves a standing ovation for this bravura performance."— Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A New York–based comedy of manners and morals featuring a brilliantly imagined female protagonist, Mona Zahid, one of the stars of a Shakespearean theater troupe based in the East Village...Readers who know their Shakespeare will thrill to Berlinski’s brilliant distillation of the power and relevance of the plays and characters, but those who don’t will find they can easily come along for the ride. And a great ride it is. Wonderfully constructed, witty, warm, wise, and filled with an extraordinary sense of the relation between theater and life."— Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Mischa Berlinski has written an instant-classic New York novel about theater, aging, sex and love, and the promise and price of life’s second acts."— Joshua Cohen, author of The Netanyahus, winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

"After a few pages, I canceled my dinner plans rather than put this one down. I absolutely loved this novel’s stunning, almost alarming, insight into one woman’s longing. An unflinchingly honest exploration of the complexities of the human condition and the ambiguities of contemporary morality, Mona Acts Out epitomizes great comedy; deftly woven throughout its fabulously hilarious prose is significant wisdom and sorrow."— Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of Rabbits for Food

"The delightful Mona Acts Out takes us where we all dream of going: away from the irritations of our present moment, into the open streets, to confront everything that still haunts us and reach, surely, hopefully, the Promised Land."— Daniel Handler, author of And Then? And Then? What Else?

"I’m head over heels for this witty, tender, keenly intelligent exploration of art, artifice, and the human heart. Mischa Berlinski is a masterful and deeply empathetic storyteller, and Mona Acts Out is a pure delight."— Antonia Angress, author of Sirens & Muses

From the Publisher