Mouthing the Words
By Camilla Gibb
Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc.
Hard Cover, 238 pages
$22

Sexual abuse, mental illness, and general dysfunction should be enough to crush any novel in a wave of darkness. Camilla Gibb takes the darkness and without sugarcoating it makes it funny, chilling, happy, and sad in one bold stroke.
Mouthing the Words, Camilla Gibb’s debut, deals with the struggle of Thelma Barley to gain control over her tormented life. It is a journey that involves sexual abuse, mental illness, and general dysfunction. Thelma lives with her parents and imaginary friends in England. Thelma’s father sexually abuses her and Thelma’s mother plays a game of hear no evil, see no evil.
The Barley’s move to Canada to get a fresh start and Thelma laments that most of her imaginary friends must stay in England. Thelma is however accompanied by her best imaginary friend Heroin. Thanks to the Canadian school system Thelma’s father is eventually taken away, though not until deep emotional and mental scars have been torn into Thelma.
Thelma begins to grow up and her character takes shape. Though she is obviously very intelligent, she is hindered by having to learn everything the hard way. Thelma tries to get her grade school teacher to adopt her and asks her mother if it would be alright if she wanted to be a lesbian when she grew up. Thelma’s mother takes Thelma with a grain
of salt, but has her own problems to deal with as well.
“I am eighteen and still not adopted. How many people have I asked? It is starting to get embarrassing.”
Thelma wakes up in the hospital. She has become bulimic and wasted away to nothing. It is here in the hospital where she will meet one of her best “real” friends in Molly, a girl with similar problems.
After dealing with her illness’ Thelma “awakes” to find she has enrolled in law school, graduated head of her class, and wound up in Oxford to study law. Yet it is the brightest moments that give way to the darkest hours. Thelma is dealing with an increased case of schizophrenia and the hassles of being a fanatically dedicated student. Along the way she manages to engage in her first “relationship” and deals with the baggage that entails. This all culminates with a suicide attempt that sends her back to Canada and back to her mother.
Slowly but surely things begin to come together for Thelma and eventually she finds the strength to go visit England with Molly. Though by no means does this novel have a happy ending.
“No wonder I do not make people comfortable. I am a mirror. I have far too many things to say.”
Mouthing the Words does not glide through the painful subject matter, but instead chooses to careen recklessly from problem to problem. Camilla Gibb chooses to use a direct and lucid approach to deal with the subject matter; not skirting any issue in the
least. Camilla Gibb uses haunting prose that can often, upon first glance, come across as confusing; this is just her way of dealing with the intense subject matter. Sexual abuse, mental illness and a general difficult coming of age are not things that lend well to being dealt with light-heartedly; yet Gibb is able to pull it off through a mask of innocence.
The subject matter is not for everyone; Mouthing the Words is a very harrowing tale and by no means a happy one. Mouthing the Words is a look into a frightening world that most know nothing of. In the end one feels as though they have accomplished a bit of what Thelma has; the arrangement of the pieces into the semblance of a picture.