Lonely Mouth
Jacqueline Maley
Harper Collins, 2025
Jacqueline Maley’s second novel, Lonely Mouth, explores the relationships between women and their bodies, particularly focused on consumption and the ways in which women limit their pleasure for validation and autonomy.
Maley, a columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald, had her first novel published in 2021 and has made this second foray into fiction, telling the story of Matilda.
Matilda has a complicated relationship with food, control and love; working in a busy Sydney restaurant, she manages other people’s enjoyment and consumption, massages difficult personalities and fiercely polices her own desires, including an unreciprocated infatuation with the head chef.
As a foil to this order and precision, Maley has created Lara, Matilda’s younger half-sister. Lara’s relationship with food and her body is also problematic; taking advantage of her beauty, she lives in Paris and works as a high-profile model.
Their family life has been chaotic. After their mother abandoned them as children on a drive to Canberra, they were both taken into foster care. Fourteen-year-old Matilda finds affection with Will, one of the sons of the family she briefly lives with, who comes back into her life as a stabilising influence later in the story.
Their mother, Barbara, is still unpredictable and unregulated, causing both Matilda and Lara distress as they negotiate their relationships with her, each other and Lara’s estranged father.
Lonely Mouth is a highly engaging and enjoyable novel, interrogating the various ways in which women find contentment, or find substitutes for happiness. Eventually, Matilda and Lara re-establish their positions as each other’s most significant relationship and strive to live fully, claiming their individual pleasures, challenges and satisfaction.
