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For Linda, conversation is a meal, often an unappetizing one. Truong writes with a focus on the disruptive nature of this condition. When a classmate speaks, Linda is not processing the content of their sentence but reacting to the flavor profile of their vocabulary. This creates a barrier between Linda and the world. In literary terms, this serves as an extreme amplification of the universal struggle to truly "hear" and understand others.

Set against the backdrop of Boiling Springs, North Carolina, the novel tells the story of Linda Hammerick, a young woman navigating her place in the world while grappling with a unique neurological condition and secrets surrounding her family heritage. The Synopsis: An Outsider’s Perspective

In the landscape of contemporary Asian-American literature, Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth stands apart. It is not a conventional immigrant saga focused on the geographical traverse from East to West; rather, it is an interior journey mapped through the senses. The novel introduces Linda Hammerick, a young woman growing up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, in the 1970s and 80s. Linda possesses a rare neurological condition: lexical-gustatory synesthesia. For her, words are not abstract symbols but edible objects; the word "god" tastes like hot buttered toast, while the word "terminate" tastes like a wild strawberry.