‘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 episode, we are talking and thinking about Jacqueline Maley’s latest novel, Lonely Mouth.

It begins with two young girls being abandoned by their mother at the Big Merino just out of Goulburn and goes on to be the story mostly of the elder sister Matilda, her hungers, losses, relationships, relationship to her sister Lara and her body. And it sparked this conversation which we hope you enjoy listening to. And as always, you don’t have to have read the book to listen along, we deal more with the themes of the book than the plot (no spoilers we promise).

Show notes with all the links and a soup to soothe and calm are coming to our wonderful subscribers shortly.

Germaine and Sophie x

Thank you to our wonderful producer, Kristy Reading, for putting this and every episode together so beautifully.

Thanks for reading Something to Eat and Something to Read! This post is public so feel free to share it.

We acknowledge that the land on which we work and live is the traditional land of the Wiradjuri Nation (Sophie) and the Gadigal of the Eora Nation (Germaine). We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

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