A Mouth of Vowels

This novel visually and narratively lives within the footnotes. The dominant story -- of the husband, the abuser -- is erased, visually blank apart from a few irruptions that invade the white space above the footnotes.

Trying to establish stability and meaning, a woman gathers and unravels a litany of distances, measurements, checks and balances. Sounds and scents are mixed in a form of post-traumatic synesthesia. Time is collapsed into a basket of humming vowels.

The typical function of the footnote as a reference bringing the reader toward deeper understanding of the main text is subverted. The narrator inserts herself in its spaces, while the reliability of the footnote and of its narrator become increasingly unstable. Her tangling and untangling narrative shifts back and forth as memories intrude on her day-to-day domestic tasks. The narrative becomes increasingly fragmentary, coalescing with the sound of a gunshot as a hunter takes down a deer.

This is a book for readers who love language, experiments with form, and a character they can get behind.

Born and raised in Northeastern Ontario, sophie anne edwards lives on Manitoulin Island (Mnidoo Mnising). She is an interdisciplinary artist and writer, gardener and water lover. After many years of solo parenting, and working in the non-profit sector as a curator, artistic director and consultant, she began writing seriously at 50. She earned a Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber. Her work has been long-listed for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize and short-listed for the 2019 Arc Poetry Magazine Poem of the Year. In 2024, A Mouth of Vowels was long-listed for U.S. based Omnidawn’s 1st/2nd book award. Conversations with the Kagawong River (TalonBooks) made CBC Books’ and Quill & Quire’s most anticipated releases lists. She’s been generously supported by The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council as well as residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Sage Hill, the Purdy A-Frame and elsewhere. When she’s not writing or recuperating, she hangs with her dog, her daughter’s dogs, and a roommate, who thankfully loves animals.