Mother Tongue by Naima Brown
“There was no wrong thought. There was no wrong inside her. Only freedom, only invitation, only the thrumming insistence of now.”
Brynn Mitchell, a twenty-something wife and mother, seemingly as it all: the handsome all-American husband, Eric, and the beautiful home, complete with golden retriever. She’s beautiful and well-liked, and her and her daughter Jenny's days are governed by ‘The Schedule’ – an immaculate run-down of chores and tasks Brynn needs to accomplish for domestic and parental bliss. Everything is just as it should be. Or is it?
Mother Tongue (2025) is the second novel from Sydney-based author Naima Brown. Set in America, it explores the ever-thought-provoking themes of motherhood, identity, self-sacrifice, selfishness, trauma and what it means to find ourselves in a world where nothing is ever certain. Following a freak accident and subsequent head trauma one winter, Brynn wakes in hospital with foreign language syndrome (FLS). She can speak fluent French, thinks in French and struggles with spoken English. It’s a rare condition that delights her medical team but leaves Eric and the rest of her family perplexed:
“Eric was vexed by the attention Brynn was getting, by the interest the local news continued to show in her, the deference people exuded when they passed her in the street. It made him feel sidelined, emasculated. It made him feel like he was the wife.”
It soon becomes apparent that Brynn has acquired not just a new language but an entirely new perspective on life and how she should approach it. From her appearance to her marriage and parenting Jenny, Brynn is called to question everything she thought she knew about herself and what she wants.
“The truth was, Brynn didn’t know if she could stop or not. She knew that Eric, her parents and Lisa…all thought she was faking it. But she wasn’t. Her inner voice was French. But could she – if she really tried, exerted all of her will and focus - force herself to speak English the right way? She didn’t know that either, and she was scared to try.”
Angered by Brynn’s departure from what Eric wants and needs her to be, tensions build until one night, Brynn knows she has only one choice: fight or flight. She chooses flight, leaving Eric, Jenny and Ginger to fend for themselves.
And with that all set up, it might be easy to think that we know exactly where Mother Tongue is heading, but rather deliciously, Brown keeps us guessing. Like the delectable croissant that graces the cover, she keeps adding buttery layer after layer, building a much richer and broader narrative than one might initially anticipate. Early in the story, we’re also introduced to Brynn’s long-standing best friend, Lucy, who harbours a deep crush on Eric. And it’s really between these two characters – Lucy and Eric – that Mother Tongue takes on a deeper exploration of human relationships and commentary of what it means to be a ‘good’ husband, wife or parent in contemporary America.
Eric is the ultimate product of his environment: imbued with a strong sense of entitlement from a young age, he continues to believe well into adulthood that he is owed a certain level of success in life simply for being a ‘good’ white, God-fearing American. It’s soon revealed that Eric is anything but good.
Lucy has long hidden in Brynn’s shadow, bumbling through life trying to figure out who she is and what she wants, turning half-heartedly to a plethora of wishy-washy ‘self-help’ material for answers. In Brynn’s departure, she is afforded an opportunity to begin uncovering who she might be, even if the path to getting there is somewhat misguided – and comes at a cost.
“Nobody had promised her that someday, eventually, he would choose her. The only person she could blame was herself. Eric had never lied to her about what he could be for her, what he could provide. She’d lied to herself.”
Tying these three characters together are their individual experiences of childhood or adolescent trauma – experiences that have shaped how they perceive the world and their place in it. As we follow them further down their mixed paths, it becomes clear that they must all try to find a way to break free from these old ideas and forge new ones for themselves.
Set between Bryn’s accident and twelve years into the future, Brown also explores what happens when mothers abandon their daughters through Jenny’s unusual upbringing and what happens when those mothers decide to re-enter their lives.
“Jenny didn’t have the vocabulary for the flood of emotions that surged through her. A confusing junk drawer of chaotic, conflicting sensations. There was a part of her, the almost-five-year old in her, that still longed for her mother, that blanketed Brynn in a kind of all-purpose forgiveness.”
Mother Tongue is one of those rare novels that will keep you guessing until the final chapter. Just when I felt I could exhale in relief that everything was falling into place for these characters, Brown prompts us to continue to consider what it really means to find ‘yourself’. Is such a thing possible, especially in a world where, particularly for women, roles are so heavily prescribed to us? And what of the people we find and those we leave behind? How does one small shift in something we take for granted – like our language – create a catalyst through which we can re-examine the world we thought we knew? Is it selfish to want more for yourself as a woman and mother, and where does one draw the line at such selfishness?
Brown doesn’t offer any probable answers to these questions, just an invitation to explore them through Brynn’s heady experience – and I loved every minute of it.
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
