Lonely Mouth

Our discussion of Jacqueline Maley's evocative novel about hunger, desire and control. We have also started receiving letters again! Read on to find our our recommendations and recipes

Hello, and here we are with Shownotes from our latest episode, where our ‘guest’ is the book Lonely Mouth, Jacqueline Maley’s latest novel. Click below to listen 👇.

Lonely Mouth, hunger and soup

‘Lonely mouth is a Japanese expression. It means, like, you feel like you want to eat something, but you don’t know what it is. You’re looking for just the right thing. But maybe there is no right thing. Maybe you don’t need anything at all.’

This is a book that begins with two young girls being abandoned by their mother at the Big Merino just out of Goulburn. It spoke to both of us about the dangers of both having appetites in life and also of trying to shut those appetites down in order to protect ourselves. What gets saved and what gets lost?

It’s a book with a lot of heart; we both loved the main character, Matilda, and became very invested in her becoming more open to her appetite for living. Here are some themes we talked about and links we mentioned;