THE BOOK TOO CONTROVERSIAL FOR AMERICA? NAIMA BROWN ON ‘MOTHER TONGUE’
By Nicole Fuge
What if being true to yourself means hurting everyone around you?
In her new novel Mother Tongue, Naima Brown explores this question with sharp wit and unflinching honesty.
Naima, who has built a career across journalism, documentary, and fiction, is no stranger to challenging narratives. With degrees in Middle Eastern Studies, Anthropology, and Religious Studies, and a career spanning newsrooms and war zones, her writing is both deeply intelligent and fiercely engaging. Her previous works, including The Shot and How to Age Against the Machine (co-authored with Melissa Doyle), have cemented her as a writer with a keen eye for human complexity.
1. summarise the plot of Mother Tongue in one sentence
When Brynn awakes from a coma speaking fluent French, she seizes the opportunity to start a brand-new existence, throwing her current life, and all those who inhabit it, into a tumultuous emotional cyclone that ultimately consumes them all.
2. Is there a character, or particular plot point, that you enjoyed writing the most?
I don’t think I could choose a favourite character – but once I’d determined that I wanted to bring all the main characters together in a cymbal-crashing crescendo, I had a lot of fun figuring out all of the manoeuvres and decisions that would need to be made to drive them towards each other.
3. You grew up in California… So, I have to ask—if you were still living in the States, do you think Mother Tongue would be added to the ‘banned books’ list?
It’s a great question. And given the political commentary and criticism that infuses Mother Tongue, coupled with the fact that my own opinions about the little orange man currently in the White House are no secret, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. And I suppose, in a sense, that would be a badge of honour.
4. Triple j’s Dee Salmin says Mother Tongue is “sharp feminist wit” – what are your favourite examples of books in this sharp feminist wit genre?
What a wonderful compliment from Dee. It’s an interesting question and kind of tied to your question about the book-banning taking place in America at the moment. There is a strident anti-woman force pulsing through the American political landscape that would very much like to make “trad wives” of us all and it doesn’t take much to piss off the manosphere. There are a lot of writers who have used their pages to push back against the patriarchal constraints society places on women’s lives and bodies, going all the way back to Alcott’s Little Women and Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own. In terms of contemporary novels, I’d point to Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women, Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch, and Miranda July’s All Fours.
5. You’ve written TWO novels (The Shot, published in 2023) and a non-fiction book (How to Age Against the Machine with Mel Doyle)—do you prefer writing fiction or non-fiction?
Fiction. I’ve always written fiction, from a very early age, propelled purely by the need and the joy of it. Writing fiction is when I feel most attuned to myself and my surroundings. But I have always written non-fiction as an academic, as a journalist, and yes—with How to Age Against the Machine— which to me is really a piece of journalism as it is a distillation of the work and experiences of other women. For me, non-fiction is work. It’s work that I love, and work that I have been very inspired to carry out, and work that I hope has an impact—but it is labour, and mentally taxing, whereas fiction invigorates me and charges my battery.
6. Is there a book that made you decide you wanted to be a writer?
I don’t know if I could say that there’s one particular book—but I would definitely say that it was the era of reading from around the age of 8-10, where I found myself paying some form of attention to what writers were doing, the choices they were making, the how of it all. These were the usual suspects: C.S. Lewis, R.L Stine, Judy Blume, Laura Ingalls Wilder and disturbingly—because it was the ‘80s, V.C. Andrews. I picked up Interview with A Vampire at 13 and didn’t resurface into the real world until I’d ploughed my way through all of Anne Rice’s work and when I came out the other end, I was spellbound—and I’d say that definitely crystallised something for me.
7. Hard to choose I know, but can you please share your THREE Favourite Books Ever with us?
Ahhhhhh, this old chestnut. I will try, but don’t hold me to it. Oh God, I can’t do it…how about this. These are three books who left their emotional mark on me, that altered me in some permanent fashion:
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
The Master Butchers Singing Club, Louise Erdrich
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
8. What’s your earliest reading memory?
Goodnight Moon, with my mum.
9. Where is your favourite place to curl up and read?
In bed with my dog, Wyatt.
10. What’s up next for Naima Brown?
More work about female rage and solidarity and resistance and power and cults and politics and deception and…you know, all the good stuff.
MUSE PAPER
ISSUE 03