Mona Acts Out

An exuberant, darkly humorous novel by the US National Book Award-shortlisted author of Fieldwork

Celebrated stage actress Mona Zahid wakes up on the morning of Thanksgiving to the clamour 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 has been fighting with her husband; and in just a few weeks she will begin rehearsals to play Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, the most challenging role of her career. On an impulse, and pretending she needs to do some last-minute shopping, Mona leaves her family and heads out into the city to visit her estranged mentor, Milton Katz, the legendary director who has been forced out of the theatre 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. At once funny and sad and wise, Mona Acts Out is a deeply moving novel about acting and telling the truth, about how we all play roles to negotiate our lives, and how the great roles teach us how to live.

Praise for MISCHA BERLINSKI

Mona Acts Out

‘An instant-classic New York novel about theater, aging, sex and love’ Joshua Cohen, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning The Netanyahus

‘Berlinski deserves a standing ovation for this bravura performance.’ Publishers Weekly

‘Wonderfully constructed, witty, warm, wise, and filled with an extraordinary sense of the relation between theater and life’ Kirkus Reviews Peacekeeping

‘Powerfully intelligent . . . There's magic in the way that Mr. Berlinski, in command of fact and emotion, pilots this big novel safely home.’ – Dwight Garner, New York Times

‘Formidable’ James Wood, New Yorker

‘Marvelous’ Washington Post Fieldwork

‘Gripping and entertaining...you know you're in the hands of a writer to whom the novel form is, when all's said, as natural as an old overcoat... A quirky, often brilliant debut, bounced along by limitless energy’ – Hilary Mantel in the New York Review of Books

'A killer novel... A great story... You can't stop reading.' Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

‘This is storytelling of the highest quality: richly entertaining, intelligent and anchored in a deep sense of humanity’ – Tash Aw, Guardian

© 2025 Simon & Schuster Audio UK (Audiobook): 9781398549630

Release date

Audiobook: 22 May 2025