Bite Your Tongue

Set in Queensland in the 1970s as well as contemporary times, this elegant mix of novel and memoir is in turn harrowing and delightful story. It threads together the childhood story of the fictional Glory Solider with the thoughts and experiences of the author, who examines her mother’s activism and copes with her death by asking Can a daughter forgive her mother for making her a pawn in her conservative moral crusades? Can greater understanding reinstate love? What does a mother owe a daughter and a daughter a mother? Ultimately a story of acceptance, this work encapsulates the deep bond that exists between a mother and her daughter.

Francesca Rendle-Short is an award-winning writer of fiction, nonfiction, essays, and poetry. She is the author of the novel Imago and the novella Big Sister. She is also the program director of creative writing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.