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happy publication day, mouth!

Mouth explores, in eleven short stories, themes of extraneity, loneliness, sexuality and mother-daughter relationships through a supernatural and speculative lens, with a dreamy style, sometimes verging on the tones of unreality.

One of the constants in the work is fruit, and I’ve never seen the word “pith�� just as often as I have in these short stories: my literary analysis is not something to be envied, and I failed to grasp the meaning fruit has in the collection. Most of the time it felt like it was there purely out of an aesthetic presence, if not for a reference to bountifulness? Fertility?
What I found really interesting was how the author kept hammering on the idea of becoming monstrous out of a sense of belonging, as opposed to the usual, othering, depiction of monstrosity.

This is the author’s debut work, and as with every short story collection, some works shine more than others: my arc copy didn’t have titles for the individual short stories so I can’t mention them without spoiling them; I enjoyed the third one, where a protagonist takes in a wolf-child in a post-apocalyptic town destroyed by the menace of wolves, and the years old affair told through a lover’s gaze while they perform the autopsy on the body of their old flame.

I think it’s an interesting collection, and despite recognising that the narrative style is not my favourite I really think it could find its audience in fans of Julian K. Jarboe’s Everyone On The Moon Is Essential Personnel and Kate Folk’s Out There.
2.75

Access to the ARC acquired thanks to NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.