I was an anxious kid with angry gums.
Is it strange that I can relate to Esther, skilled grinder and clencher of teeth? I understand waking to crunching- stress does that for me. All I can say is, I keep my dentist busy too! Esther’s chops know full well about her worries, it’s where she channels them but it is also how she makes her living as a skilled pencil biter. Her mandible control makes her, she tells us, “the best MouthFeel Tester™ and VIP Pencil Preserver™ Juliet Pencils has ever employed.” Owned by Juliet (all girls in the Rosenblum family are thus named) it will one day be inherited by Frankie (whom Juliet broke with tradition in naming differently). Always passed down through the mother, the factory has been in their family for generations, but the success of the company is more often an embarrassment to the teen. Juliet has raised Frankie to believe in the power of women, and isn’t concerned about being the sort of mother who whips up comforting meals nor teaching her how to be a good wife for a future husband- she’s too busy working hard and setting up “Mom’s Girls! Do Work!” rallies. She has taught her daughter to always be heard in the world in the way she herself blazes through life. Easy to do, until Frankie is in an accident at the factory and wakes up to find herself muted, struggling to make sense of what just happened to her. Worse, her mother Juliet is ever present, worrying over her in a way she never had to before.
Ruth owns and runs the local photography lab and lives each day buried by a grief so deep that is has taken root, leaving her numb. The darkroom is a welcome pause for dragging days and pointless, exhausting interactions. Business may carry a person, but a life it doesn’t make for a brokenhearted widow. It is through others photographs (a stolen moment in time) that she is able to anchor herself. It is a way for her to reclaim time, the very thing “time” that snatched the husband she loved so very much away from her. Ruth’s outpourings are just as much a throbbing ache as the muscles in Esther’s jaw. A loss that clenches and grinds the heart to a pulp. Anna Cox has done a beautiful job writing about love and how easily it can “dematerialize without warning.” She shows us how even something as common as a shirt can lend gravity to a person barely hanging on.
As Ruth develops film, Frankie is developing into a young woman and it’s a nightmare to find herself in a hospital, unable to speak with only a notebook to communicate. Sixteen years old and stuck being treated like she’s a six again! Then there is Noah, whom she met when she joined the all boys troop “Patriot Adventures”, of course there is a story there! Naturally, she endured unwelcome recognition from the other troop members that she didn’t want until Noah came along, which had me laughing. Frankie’s voice brings sunshine to a novel that can gut you with it’s pain. There are times I felt like I was a pencil Esther was chewing on, just like life feeds on Esther, Ruth, Frankie and her mother Juliet. Of course Juliet feels guilty, but guilt isn’t productive- Frankie knows that isn’t the emotion she needs from her strong mother. Frankie has to figure her life out too, reborn to this new way of being in the world, unsure how to make this work- voiceless? Not looking exactly as she did before the accident. There isn’t a rally in the world that can fix this.
What can Esther do now for her hungry teeth? She is jobless, for how long? Her teeth have their demands, she is their hostage! To please them, she chews on all sorts of household things like wooden hangers and a plunger. Her teeth need to work whether they are required to or not! There is such pleasure in the bite, it is her very livelihood! Now her purpose has been taken away, what will she do if the plant doesn’t return to normal? She escapes for a time, at least, in her and Frankie’s guilty pleasure the soap opera Woeful Valley. Yet, her teeth are always waiting… aching… is she going to go crazy before this is all over?
What about Ruth? Is she ever going to climb out of the rubble of her own life? She spends her days seeing as a photographer, missing nothing. Then an idea forms, of taking on other people’s burdens and soon becomes a bigger job than she imagined. It’s madness, it just might be a salve too.
This novel is perfectly strange, intelligently written, painful and engaging to the very end. It is told through the voices of Ruth, Esther and Frankie’s active, humorous young mind. Who knew a story about a pencil factory could be so wonderful! Anna Cox is an author to watch. This is one heck of a debut novel! Love the cover too! Definitely add this book to your summer reading list!
Publication Date: June 23, 2020
Little A
bookstalkerblog 
Your review is sharp and clean.
Thank you for voicing many of my
comments. I so enjoyed every word, so much I read this novel three times, which is customary for me when I so like a book.
The only thing I would have added is the similarity between how the workers of the factory and how we are reacting to the pandemic, amazing the parallels as this novel
was written and published long before this pandemic.
Again, thank you for your review
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your kind words, I appreciate it and you are absolutely right about the parallels. It’s sometimes uncanny how fiction spills into reality often in a predictive nature. It’s such a great title too, I love novels with interesting titles. Thanks again
LikeLike