Jean: A Novel, Madeleine Dunnigan

Description

Jean: A Novel
Hardcover – January 13, 2026
by Madeleine Dunnigan

Jean is a striking and emotionally assured hardcover debut novel set over one hot summer in 1970s London, exploring the kinds of love that can both fracture us and offer the promise of escape. At its center is seventeen-year-old Jean, a troubled Jewish boy caught in the countercultural drift of the era, struggling to survive adolescence in a world that seems designed to reject him.

Dyslexic, antisocial, and prone to violent outbursts, Jean has never felt safe or understood at school. Sent to Compton Manor, a rural alternative boarding school for boys with “problems,” he knows this is his last chance. The school’s unconventional teaching methods offer some freedom, but Jean remains an outsider. He is there on a grant, unlike the other fee-paying boys with stable English families. His own background sets him apart: a German-Jewish refugee mother and a father who exists only as an absence.

Already on thin ice after breaking the rules, Jean focuses on surviving the summer, passing his exams, and getting out. Then he meets Tom—confident, charming, and cushioned by privilege. Their friendship quickly deepens into something more, and Jean is swept into an intense and overwhelming infatuation. Skipping classes, wandering through woods, and crossing moonlit fields to see Tom, Jean begins to wonder if love might offer an escape from a life defined by alienation.

But desire carries its own dangers. As the relationship grows more consuming, Jean must confront the possibility that freedom may come at a devastating cost—or that the only way out is to disappear altogether.

Spellbinding and evocative, Jean is a meditative narrative of loss, longing, and escape, distilled into the heartrending story of a first love that is as transformative as it is perilous.