Jane Blunschi’s ‘Mon Dieu, Love’ Debuts

Author and English professor Jane Blunschi recently launched a new book, Mon Dieu, Love, her debut novella.

Mon Dieu, Love was released by Texas Review Press in April and is the winner of the 2022 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize.

Set in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Mon Dieu, Love is the story of Elise and Carrie Briggs, a pair of sisters stuck in a non-stop loop of relationship mistakes; attempts at sobriety from drugs, alcohol and general lesbian drama; and accidental, unwelcome emotional growth. As Carrie works to make sense of her life post-divorce, Elise begins an affair with an older ex-nun amid a surge of confusing religious fervor and supernatural experience. Relief from the predictability of her already established long-term relationship is short-lived for Elise, who learns more than she’d like to know about fidelity, romance, love and family.

Renee Gladman, author of the Ravicka novel cycle, describes Mon Dieu, Love as a “novel of queer love and entanglement that astonishes with its capacity to both disturb and endear. . . It is a surprising, sometimes uncomfortable, often funny, deeply nuanced journey that binds your attention until its end. A magnetic debut.”

Canese Jarboe, author of Dark Acre, writes, “Blunschi crafts prayers from rage, from tenderness, from addiction — a rosary in which every other bead is a love letter to never knowing the answer. . . Blunschi’s debut is a bruise that feels good to touch.”

And Lindsay A. Chudzik, editor in chief of Feels Blind Literary, applauds Blunschi for “craft[ing] stories that blend humor and empathy. [Blunschi’s] prose displays a sensitivity to her characters, inviting readers to appreciate their flaws in the same ways one might appreciate the flaws of close friends or family members. I read this novella in one sitting; once invited into these characters’ worlds, it was difficult to leave. Blunschi clearly is an author the world should watch.”

Blunschi is also the assistant director of the Program in Creative Writing and Translation at the U of A and has previously published the travel book Love, Tupelo and the short story collection Understand Me, Sugar.

This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.