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A Novel
by Mischa Berlinski
Book Reviewed by:An exuberant, darkly humorous novel by the National Book Award–nominated author of Fieldwork.
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.
1
On the outlines of Milton Katz's accomplishment, the general shape and structure of his achievement, there was a single point of agreement: not even the most fervent of his enemies denied that the Disorder'd Rabble owed to Milton the remarkable good fortune that was possession of 107 Avenue C.
The story now was company legend: how in 1966 Milton found the abandoned glove factory, little more than a burnt-out husk, victim of the decline in women's formal handwear and a suspicious fire. How squatters were occupying the building: an anarchist commune on the first and second floors, a shooting gallery on three, and on the fourth floor, a Maoist revolutionary organization. How Milton and his guerrilla Shakespeare company seized the fifth floor. How the company rehearsed there during the week and put on free shows every Friday and Saturday night for anyone hip enough to know where to go and brave enough to make their way down to Alphabet City after dark, wriggle through 107 Avenue C's ...
BookBrowsers ask Mischa Berlinski
My wife works for the United Nations, and I've followed her around the world now for almost twenty years. It would have been very hard, almost impossible, for me to have lived in Haiti had she not had a job there. I did the research for Mona Acts Out when she was assigned to a New York duty stati...
-Mischa_B
What are you reading this week? (7/17/2025)
Currently reading https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/19285/death-at-the-sign-of-the-rook Death at the Sign of the Rook for the upcoming discussion, and then I'll move on to https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/21087/hot...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (7/10/2025)
I finally broke out of my slump - what a relief! The book to do it for me was The Tapestry of Time. After I got about 25% of the way through, it completely hooked me. I don't think I would have picked it up based on the description - four clairvoyant sisters in WWII - but the author really made i...
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (7/2/2025)
...k_number/4953/beta-vulgaris Beta Vulgaris by Margie Sarsfield, then on to https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/4946/mona-acts-out Mona Acts Out by Mischa Berlinski. Both authors will be here for a chat (7/21 and 7/28, respectively).
-kim.kovacs
Just weeks away from playing the role of her life—Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra—Mona is resigned to spending Thanksgiving heavily self-medicated in order to endure the tide of her family and the underlying pressure that comes with a multi-faceted acting role. Given the narrative is almost entirely written in Mona's perspective, her view of supporting cast members does not always align with reality. They seem to take on different roles in Mona's story: the way Mona sees them in her memories, and the way Mona sees them in the present. The subtle inaccuracies between Mona's memories and what readers soon learn is the truth not only make these supporting characters more interesting but also add depth to Mona's personality...continued
Full Review
(682 words)
(Reviewed by Frankie Martinez).
Antonia Angress, author of Sirens & Muses
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. Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of Rabbits for Food
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. Daniel Handler, author of And Then? And Then? What Else?
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.In Mona Acts Out, seasoned actress Mona Zahid is about to start rehearsals for her role as Cleopatra in Shakespeare's tragedy Antony and Cleopatra. Mona approaches the whole thing with trepidation, citing that she's "never actually seen a great Cleopatra," as the character is many-layered and must command the stage through the show up until the last thirty minutes in the play, when she must "keep the audience already up past eleven right with her while she kill[s] herself."
Based on accounts written by Greek biographer and historian Plutarch, Antony and Cleopatra is Shakespeare's famous dramatization of the events surrounding Augustus Caesar's rise in the Roman Empire, with an emphasis on Caesar's ...
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