Bitter in the Mouth: A Novel

From Monique Truong, winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature and author of The Sweetest Fruits, a brilliant, virtuosic novel about a young womans search for identity and the true meaning of family What I know about you, little girl, would break you in two are the prophetic last words that Linda Hammericks grandmother says to her. Growing up in small-town North Carolina in the 1970s and 80s, Linda already knows that she is profoundly different from everyone else, including the members of her own family. She can taste words. In this and in other ways, her body is a mystery to her. Lindas awkward girlhood is nonetheless enlivened and emboldened by her dancing great-uncle Harper, and Kelly, her letter-writing best friend. Linda makes her way north to college and then to New York City, trying her best to leave her past behind her like a pair of shoes that no longer fit. But when a family tragedy compels her to return home, Linda uncovers the startling secrets of her past. Monique Truongs acclaimed novel questions our assumptions about what it means to be a family and to be a friend, to be foreign and to be familiar, to be connected to and disconnected from our bodies, our histories, ourselves.