I Keep My Worries in My Teeth

A Novel

De: Anna Cox

Narrado por: Amy McFadden, Janina Edwards, Janet Varney

A dazzling, sublimely funny debut that follows three unforgettable women who fight back after life kicks them in the teeth.

Esther, Frankie, and Ruth live in a small Ohio town anchored by the thriving Juliet Pencils factory. After a freak accident at the plant, these women have to re-create their lives using the only tools they’ve got: wits, molars, and a new pair of shoes.

Esther is an anxious person with a very specific prowess: she bites pencils. Her skill pays her bills but more importantly keeps her many worries in check. When the accident leaves her suddenly unemployed, she searches for new ways to manage her anxiety, but nothing works. She must discover a solution before her teeth mutiny and her worries take over.

Frankie, the teenage daughter of the pencil factory owner, is full of contradictions. She wages a campaign to become the only girl in an all-boys club and listens exclusively to punk music, but she also watches soap operas in secret. After the accident damages Frankie’s ability to speak, she is forced to step out of her powerful mother’s shadow so she can discover who she is and what she wants to say.

Ruth owns the local photography lab. She spends her days processing people’s happy memories but spends her nights alone, talking to her dead husband. As the town unravels, Ruth spearheads a massive campaign to refocus on its future, but nothing will succeed until Ruth lets go of her past.

This hilarious and redemptive story explores three women’s liberation amid a tumult of grief, loneliness, and first love.

©2020 Anna Nester Scalf Cox. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Cox is a talented storyteller with a knack for mixing sublime prose with humor and violence, and her insights about love, family, and photography fill the narrative with bits of superb writing. Touching, clever, and hilarious, this is a notable debut.”—Publishers Weekly

“The freak explosion at a small-town Ohio pencil factory [is told] from the points of view of three women caught in the fallout…These are earnest, irony-free…tales of trauma and recovery that add up to a larger story of community revival. Esther, struggling ‘to control a mouth with a mind of its own,’ is the standout character. Her OCD is a nightmare but also the source of her tenacity.”—The Wall Street Journal

“I Keep My Worries in My Teeth is a binge-worthy novel that’s laced with so many unexpected surprises…I absolutely loved it.”—Hypable

A story to fall in love with

I fell in love with this book in the first chapter. The story is clever, sharp and funny. The writing is well crafted and accomplished. The performances were excellent! I have finished the book and I am still in love. Brava! Brava!

Photography as a character

I loved the way she spun photography so completely into the story and made it seem like its own character. I love that “shift in perspective “ that it lends to the story.

Out of my comfort zone and glad I did!

I am a sci-fi and historical fiction (Aubrey-Maturin especially) aficionado. On a suggestion from a friend I took a "risk" and downloaded this novel. A story about women in an Ohio town in the late 70's. Pretty sure I couldn't get farther away from my usual pool. Did I mention any of the apocalyptic survival books I read too? Well, I was set back on my heels! The performances where so good, each actress excelled in her own right and it blended the overall arc of the story perfectly. The story itself...so wild yet down to Earth. I kept asking myself whose story line I like the most..probably Franky but that's a stretch as it was all just so darn fun. Interesting that some parts of the book dealing with people have unexpectedly found themselves with a lot of time on their hands really resonates in today's climate. Just a gosh darn good story overall. Thanks.

Mesmerizing

Deeply fascinating characters navigating a shared crisis. Enjoyed every second of this book and wish it had been longer.

couldn't get past the first 10 minutes.

Not my style. I could not get into this at all. Nothing grabbed my attention and it wasn't funny at all to me