In Francesca Rendle-Short's family, silence was golden. So to break ranks and tell stories about her peculiar family life and her mother's moral crusading should send this daughter straight to hell in a ball of smoke and flame along with all those books her mother wanted to burn. Some stories are hard to tell. But like reading, writing stories changes everything. Set in 1970s Queensland and also contemporary times, Bite Your Tongue is an elegant mix of novel and memoir that is in turn harrowing and delightful. It threads together the childhood story of the fictional Glory Solider, with the thoughts and experiences of the adult author, Francesca Rendle-Short, as she looks more deeply into her mother's activism at the time of facing her mother's death. 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?

About the Author
Francesca Rendle-Short is the author of the novel Imago, the novella Big Sister, and co-author with Felicity Packard of the play Us. Her short fictions, photo-essays, exhibition text, and poetry for the page and for the wall, have been published in literary journals and magazines, online and in exhibitions.

Reviews
"Rendle-Short has created an engaging, unsettling and at times darkly funny account of her childhoodthat will be of interest to those studying literary representations of mother-daughter relationships." - Bronwen Lacken,Kings College London June 2015



Book Information
ISBN 9781876756963
Author Rendle-Short Francesca
Format Paperback
Page Count 246
Imprint Spinifex Press
Publisher Spinifex Press
Weight(grams) 330g
Dimensions(mm) 230mm * 155mm * 20mm