Mouth of the Lion by Lily Richards

Title: Mouth of the Lion
Author: Lily Richards
Genre: Literary Fiction
URL: Casperian Books
Price: $15.00
Other Information/Warnings: Drug use, violence, explicit sex, cutting.

Summary (from the publisher): The narrator of Mouth of the Lion is James Sheahan, an occasional writer and steady drug user driven by equal parts ritual, atheism, and Catholic guilt. James hasn’t talked to his youngest brother Micky in years, and his exchanges with his oldest brother Patrick are shouted across transcontinental phone lines, but he does care for his middle brother Luka, who is camped out on the living room floor together with a vagrant teenager. Until now, James’ problems have revolved around a dealer eight hours late for an appointment and a girlfriend he despises, but things are about to come apart at the seams. As spring turns to summer, Luka embarks on a quest to drag old skeletons out of the family closet and James has to confront secrets and lies: his family’s and his own. Mouth of the Lion is a novel about the ties that bind and two brothers’ obsession with changing the immutable.

My Review: Engrossing and utterly truthful, Mouth of the Lion is an unflinching and unapologetic glimpse into family dynamics, substance abuse, guilt, redemption, living with the past and finding a way through a life that has had more downs than ups.  The story begins with a truthful self-summation by our narrator, James, who warns us:  This is not a nice story because I suspect I am not a very nice man. Right then and there we know that author Richards is not going to pull any punches as she launches us into James’ world, but within a few pages we’re more than willing to ignore that warning because the narrator’s voice is charming and engaging, just as we will soon learn James can be…well, when he wants to.

The heart of the story is the relationship between James and his brother Declan, who has renamed himself Luka after declaring his prior incarnation dead.  As the story progresses we learn–through expertly interspersed flashback–that James had spent the better part of his youth raising Luka and their younger brother Mickey after their father abandoned them and their older brother Patrick ran off with his punker girlfriend, leaving  them with a mother who simply didn’t understand what motherhood was all about.  But these days, the youngest brother Micky never speaks to James, Patrick conveniently lives a continent away, and Luka is not only embroiled in the substance abuse that has come to define James’ life, but he also battles with mental illness which makes him volatile and unpredictable.  Add in the death of James’ wife–his first true love–from a drug overdose and the slight mystery that surrounds it and you have a picture perfect dysfunctional family.

What makes Mouth of the Lion a fascinating read is just how right author Richards gets everything, from the dynamics of brotherhood, to Catholic guilt, to the life of someone trying to self-medicate the pain away.  Richards’ prose is as sharp and clean as James’ life is not.  Seldom does she cross into metaphor, but when she does, Richards does so with a point and a light hand. And as she builds her characters, the beauty of it all is that their imperfect lives, their self destructive outlooks manage to charm us, make us root for them to turn their lives around, cheer for them when we see them on the cusp of doing so, and have our hopes dashed when they fail.  But, as anyone who has known someone embroiled in self-loathing and drug abuse can tell you, it isn’t going to be a pretty ride.  Plenty of times we as readers want to smack James around, get him to clean up his life and move on from a past that haunts him, one for which he seeks a redemption that is frustratingly within his own grasp if he were only brave enough to stand up and take it.  These men spend so much time talking at one another, that we long for them to speak to one another, to move past the way things have always been.

Luka, our other main character, is expertly written, bouncing back and forth from an almost petulant child to an intellectual giant who can argue with God if he needed to.  It’s a deep portrayal, at times frustrating because we want to break through the mental illness and get to know him, and at others, wonderfully endearing.  Luka is a man who struggles with his illness, his own past, his love and loathing for James, and a realization about himself that seems far less acceptable than his illness, especially in the family into which he has been born.  Just when we think we know Luka, he surprises us and by the end of the novel, when Luka comes to a peace with part of his life, we as readers are proud of him, thankful and touched.

We do, as the story progresses, meet Patrick and the younger Micky, both of whom have moved on to lead respectable lives. While they each play relatively minor roles in the story, each character’s spirit permeates the book, their absence becoming a character all its own.  In short even though the characters are missing for the majority of the story, we feel them. We feel we know them. And when we do meet them, they are almost exactly as we had pictured them.  That is a pretty impressive piece of writing, each character a sort of Godot known by their absence and second hand stories.

One thing I especially appreciated about this novel is that structure-wise Richards was unafraid of the use of flashback, inserting them only where it was necessary to provide illumination, and trusting that her readers could keep up.  There’s no talking down in this novel, no sermonizing, no judgment. Just two men, their lives as stark and real as Richards could portray it.

If I had to find one fault with the novel, it lies in, perhaps, its greatest strength…its realism. Mouth of the Lion is a brutal, honest look at damaged lives.  I found myself at times fascinated with and other times repulsed by these men. I also often found myself amused, angry or sympathetic. The range of emotions Richards puts us through is astounding, but there is one that is missing…joy.  As a reader, I found myself needing to take breaks from these men, praying that something good would happen to them, if only for a minute.  I’ve known people like them, the melodrama that can ensure, and sometimes you just need to get away from it…maybe just like Patrick and Micky.  I got a taste of that–of the possible peace–in Luka’s realization at the end of the novel, but I wanted more of that sprinkled into the story here in there. It gives the reader a break from the drama, while at the same time giving us glimpses of what life could be for these men.

But in the end, this is an engrossing, exceptionally well-written novel. It isn’t light reading, but it is a fascinating portrayal of the search for self forgiveness, redemption, and the love, loathing and histories that come along with families. You may come away feeling a bit drained after reading this novel, but you’ll also come away feeling full, knowing you’ve met some real people just fighting to make their way.