Milk Teeth

Product Information

I would rather sit down to eat and think with Jessica Andrews any day: Milk Teeth is a novel about holding space, and the hard work that it takes. Through a mosaic of memory and nostalgia, we observe as our unarmed protagonist navigates both her past and present. I want you to know how integral it has been to the way I move through the world, how I learned to push shame and anger deep into by body and yet speaking about it brings it into the present, when all I want is to leave it behind. I thought I had chosen London as the place where I would make my own life, but its edges were sharp and cruel and I got caught on them, bloodying my ankles and wrists. Not to mention the bitter sense of nostalgia of growing up in the 90s and early noughties, in the shadows of ‘heroine chic’ bodies and Kate Moss’ “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

Milk Teeth is the transporting, visceral novel that resulted from that time, and hunger/desire/denial are the words that, were you asked to distill its essence into just three, would still accurately capture its main themes. Across its blissfully sprawling passages detailing scenes from different cities, what anchors the novel is its exploration of how hunger, class, desire and gender are interlaced . i am beyond grateful to sceptre for sending me an advance copy of her equally as gorgeous, brutally honest and emotional follow-up. In lyric dispatches, with the condensed cadences of poetry, Andrews' novel brilliantly explores the ways we grow into and beyond the limits of ourselves, and what happens in the gaps in between who we are and who we're expected to be. Nor as the woman who relates to that sense of never being whole, never being enough, while wanting nothing more than to let someone else fill me up and decide where life goes next.For a novel that is so sharp and often written with such linguistic utility, it isn’t at all sparse. The novel is full of these astute, powerful, gut-wrenching overviews in which the protagonist cements her alien-ness whilst creating a sense of collaborative, uncomfortable marriage between privilege and consumption. As for a new book that I'm excited about, Jessica Andrews' Milk Teeth - her follow-up to award-winning debut novel Saltwater - would have to be it. And if these had been addressed, perhaps I would have been more sympathetic to her and her life choices.

I know I am not supposed to put my need in you but it spills from my lips and bursts over your body, soaking you in want. throughout, aspects of class are highlighted and much of andrews' prose is deeply relatable and smarting. I refuse to perpetuate the stereotype that all female written fiction is autobiographical – of course it isn’t.Themes of loneliness, belonging, identity and love - and how we're ultimately deserving of it - will both break and warm your heart.

They meet again, go dancing and spend the night together sparking a passion that consumes them both. When a copy of Milk Teeth was in my postbox on Friday morning I honestly felt like I’d won the lottery and had to explain to my parents who were looking at me with rather great levels of concern what this book was and why I was so worked up over it.It transports you fully to the various locations it is set in, covering the five senses with detailed descriptions until you are immersed in the grimy pubs and packed nightclubs of London, the pokey attic bedrooms of Paris, and, most vividly I feel, the hot streets and tiny tapas bars of Barcelona. not to mention the relationship between the protagonist and her boyfriend - this couple has the worst communication skills in the world?