The Language of Others centers around Jessica Fontaine, a divorced woman in her 40s with an adult son living with her. Jessica has always preferred her own company to being with others and can't even understand how people cope without enough breathing space around them. The return of her brilliant but volatile ex-husband after a seven-year absence upsets her world. As Jessica remembers her childhood, her marriage, and her divorced life with her son, she begins to build a self-awareness of why she is the way she is and how she's different from most people. She also realizes that she sees some of the same behaviors in her son. Clare Morrall's novel has received mostly positive reviews with The Guardian saying, "
The Language of Others offers a suspenseful tale with a taut, spare style and real emotional impact. In this and in its brave challenge to our assumptions about what is 'normal' it's a more than worthy shelfmate to
Astonishing Splashes of Colour."
