milktooth
A powerful work of contemporary literary fiction set in Cape Breton and Scotland exploring the clandestinity of queer abuse from the Thomas Raddall Award–shortlisted author of Crocuses Hatch from Snow.
Sorcha is over the hook-ups and gay haunts of her twenties. At thirty-one what she wants, more than anything, is to have a baby. Then she meets Chris— with her buttoned-up plaid, 90s heartthrob hair, and grand romantic gestures— and things get serious. Fast. Though Sorcha’s friends find her new partner problematic, Sorcha has an explanation for everything.
As Chris’s moods turn volatile and Sorcha becomes increasingly isolated, Chris paints an idyllic picture of domestic bliss in Cape Breton. Sorcha is all in: if her conservative religious upbringing taught her anything, it’s how to save. Plus, Chris promises Sorcha the thing she wants most—a baby.
But when Sorcha becomes pregnant and Chris’s abuse escalates, Sorcha realizes she must escape the life they’ve built together, just as she escaped her own stifling family years before.
When Sorcha’s estranged Aunt Agnes, a retired midwife, messages Sorcha out of the blue, her bothy in the Scottish Highlands seems the perfect place to hide. As the bundle of cells in Sorcha’s belly diligently divides, she daydreams that Agnes will deliver the baby and they’ll stay in Scotland, where Chris can’t find them. And where, just maybe, Sorcha could build the sort of family she’s always ached for.
Exploring the clandestinity of queer abuse, the fierceness of friendship, and the magic of found family, milktooth is a bold, inventive, lyrical and darkly funny story about finding the strength to cut away what’s harmed you and create something entirely new.
