Author:Jane Wenham-Jones
Cari is devastated when her husband Martin leaves her for another woman.
Her friend, wide-boy Nigel, persuades her to get a bank loan and buy a house to do up for rental, but it soon becomes apparent that he's contravened every rule and regulation in the book.
She's lumbered with an infuriating mother, a friend who's permanently pregnant, and a friend who may be pregnant - but not by her husband - and her neurotic sister Juliette is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Her first tenant, Gary, turns out to be a drug addict on benefit. He moves in a dozen mates and barricades Cari in the flat while the police are battering the door down, ensuring that she's arrested along with the squatters.
And then her estranged husband announces that he wants to sell the house she's living in.
Could life get any worse?
At least her love life begins to get interesting. Pursued by spinsterish Henry, she has a fling with TV interviewer Guy, and then there's closet opera fan Ben the Builder, reassuring and more than presentable.
Cari writes a wish list: (a) Make some money (b) Lose some weight (c) Find someone to have a grand passion with and (d) Become so rich and successful that Martin is consumed with jealousy.
And suddenly, all her wishes begin to be answered...
'Thoroughly enjoyable and full of deft, sparky humour'
—— Jill MansellFamily secrets, first love and teen betrayals all make up the novel's classic menu
—— IndependentPiercingly eloquent...richly drawn characters...captivating pace
—— New York TimesSouthern cadences resonate, imbuing Bitter In The Mouth with a warmth and wit that form a perfect foil for the Southern gothic undercurrents that propel it towards its gorgeous, heart-warming resolution
—— HeraldA revelation of wit and heart and stunning talent. Truong shades her classic coming of age tale with a magical ferocity that recalls Doctorow and Nabokov....a soulful hymn to the hands we fashion with the cards we're dealt
—— Jayne Anne PhillipsTruong's pen is a scalpel, laying perfect words down along that nerve until even the happiest reader understands what it means to forever stand apart from your family and the larger society you inhabit...The novel's end is neither bitter nor sweet, but the perfect combination of both
—— Los Angeles TimesIf you liked The Shaking Woman by Siri Hustvedt, you'll love Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong... a tale of friendship, loyalty, love, family, and above all, the mysteries that make us who we are
—— TatlerWith a heroine who literally eats words, Truong is amply aware of the power of them... she wields her narrative like a quarterstaff, knocking readers' expectations right out from under them
—— Washington PostMonique Truong creates a world so subtle, mysterious, moving and sensory that it heightens our consciousness of those qualities in our own. Bitter in the Mouth is the rare novel that makes one life story unique and universal at the same time
—— Gloria SteinemBe prepared for a full range of tastes of life in Bitter in the Mouth: friendship, loyalty, love, family, and above all, the mysteries at every corner of one's history that make us who we are. Monique Truong is a great observer and a beautiful writer
—— Yiyun Li
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