I Keep My Worries in My Teeth: A Novel

Written by Anna Cox

Narrated by Amy McFadden, Janina Edwards and 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Jun 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781799750567

Anna Cox

Anna Cox teaches photography at universities in Canada and the United States. This is her first novel.

Reviews for I Keep My Worries in My Teeth

[froxgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Look in the dictionary under "quirky" and this short, strange novel will appear. It features the one-industry town of Lead, the Juliet Pencil Factory, and the rupture in the lives of three women when the factory blows up. No one is killed in the tragedy, but Frankie Rosenblum, teenage daughter of the owner, has her first love affair interrupted by her injuries. Her friend Esther has been the "Mouthfeel Tester" of the factory for fifteen years and cannot find worthy substitutes for her preferred chew of choice; and Ruth, a widow distraught over the death of her soulmate husband Max a year earlier and owner of three photo labs in Lead, offers to fix everyone's photos post-blast but ends up with requests to fix lives instead. The book is fun and funny but not substantial.