Book Club - Naima Brown’s Mother Tongue

Naima Brown’s essays have appeared in Vogue, the Guardian, and more. She wrote, along with Melissa Doyle, the non-fiction book How to Age Against the Machine and is the author of The Shot.  Mother Tongue is her second novel. Ever since the birth of her daughter Jenny, Brynn’s life has been ruled by The Schedule; a clockwork routine that means Jenny will love her and Brynn will be the mother she know she can be.  Her husband Eric works hard for the family and Brynn will too. Her best friend Lisa always tells she has the perfect life and if Brynn doesn’t feel like that’s true well then maybe she just needs to work harder at it. Maybe it’s the working hard that did it. Why Brynn was outside on the icy step, taking the fall and then ending up in a coma. When Brynn awakes from her coma her life is still the same picture of suburban idyll. It’s just Brynn doesn’t seem to fit it anymore. She speaks fluent French, a thing called Foreign Accent Syndrome, and English is an effort. Suddenly her world feels strange. Brynn is a new person, and while Jenny still accepts her mother, no one else seems to. Eric is becoming withdrawn, even hostile. Her parents are avoiding her and Lisa thinks she might be faking and is eying of Eric. It’s all too much and so Brynn leaves… Mother Tongue is about the expectations placed on women’s lives and how these narrow standards manage to choke everyone no matter your position or privilege. When Brynn wakes up speaking French she equates this as not just a second chance, but a second soul. Freed from so many of the conventions of her world, Brynn suddenly finds that this world is becoming intolerable to her.  While those around her seek to gaslight her experience Brynn comes to raise that the only choice she may have is to opt out. Lisa is in many easy Brynn’s foil. Where Brynn opts out, Lisa will opt in. Taking Brynn’s place in the family she will allow Eric to use her for her labour to raise Jenny whilst never truly loving her or wanting her there. The novel only builds momentum from here exploring how each character’s lives unfold when they are untethered from their ‘typical’ everyday existence. I’d tell you more about the trajectory of the narrative, playing out over the next fourteen odd years, but you probably wouldn’t believe me. Mother Tongue is incisive in its wit even as its wildly dark and sardonic in its narrative twists. The personal is political here and Brynn’s choices, indeed all of the characters choices seem to play out against a wider social current of inclusive vs xenophobic impulses. While Brynn lands on her feet in Paris she is not free from the suspicion that drove her out of her home. Meanwhile back in Elderpool Eric is flirting with the absolute worst of humanity as his chance to escape his own personal malaise. Mother Tongue is clever, fun and wild. Even as it asks big questions, it offers a guiding hand on the journey to some kind of answer. As Brynn might say ‘C’est un grand livre. Je la recommande’