Millicent Milner is over 30 now but still floundering and in pain, still running away. So is her big sister, Geena. Why? Everyone fawned over their suburban American parents. “You girls are so lucky! Such a charming mother you have! And that dynamic father!” Geena – wickedly funny and outrageous – goes at it alone, slashing out brutal sculptures with a chainsaw. As she proclaims: “A scream made of wood shrieks forever.” Millicent is divorced and also alone, with seven-year-old Alice. She hates her ‘stupid self’ but clings to the image of her past, present and future as brightly glowing pink. With sex as her art form, she’s certain that romance is her calling. When an Italian lover offers Millicent a teaching job – in Rome – she buys one-way tickets for herself and Alice. Finally! The answer…And off they go.
American born Susan Schwartz Senstad holds Masters’ degrees in psychology and fiction writing. She practiced in the U.S., Italy, and Norway as a psychotherapist and communications teacher and works now as a writer and editorial consultant. Her prize-winning first novel, ‘Music for the Third Ear’, was translated and published in five countries, and adapted and broadcast internationally as the ‘BBC Radio 4 Friday Play’, ‘Zero’. She lives in Oslo with her Norwegian husband with whom she shares three children and five grandchildren.
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Reviews
14 reviews
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I have just finished reading this wonderful book and it was a treat. Senstad is a fine writer. The rhythm of the language was consistent, her sense of humour came through, and most of all, the characters were so well developed. It brought me to tears much time throughout the reading, as grief always moves me.
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Sonja Linden Playwright, Founder/Artistic Director ViSiBLE Theatre, London
I took “Milk and Venom” with me for my holiday read this week and have just finished it. What a wonderful read ( and quite a sexy one too - impressive)! Many many congratulations again on producing a novel with such well-delineated characters and unusually for having a key character in her 70s as well as a very young girl - quite a span! I really enjoyed Hermina and loved the final showdown between her and Phyllis - but also she continued a relationship with Sam after his death. What a great character Geena is, wonderfully excessive - I love the description of her art exhibition. As for Millicent, her journey/arc is beautifully defined, her promiscuity, a mistaken search for the love she didn’t get from her mother/parents, her low self esteem as a result of this, and her final acquisition of a sense of self worth through creating work that is meaningful for her with Lingua Nuova and of course though falling in love with a decent man, Leo…– this lovely man.!
But the spine of the novel, thematically, the mother who produces venom rather than milk - a great description - is hugely shocking and very powerfully illustrated as is her daughters’ touching, continuous hope for some sign of change on the part of their mother until the final acceptance that this will never come, there will be no redemption. This was such an important and unique thread.
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K.A. - Teacher in Norwegian and French litterature
What impact do our parents have on who we become as adults? More specifically for this novel: How can a daughter liberate herself from a mother who bullies her children psychologically, hits them, even actually hates them? How can a child who has been treated that way learn to become a good mother to her own children?
This book lets us live with Millicent as she matures from being a wounded child into – hopefully – a healthy grown-up.
At several points, I was moved to tears as I read this novel. I cried at the descriptions of the cruelty the mother put her daughters through. And I cried because Millicent, treat her own little daughter, Alice, with so much wisdom and tenderness. Moving!
The language is exquisite – it flows – and the transitions between the present and the past are “seamless”.
I know for sure that there are many daughters – and sons – out there who have had similar experiences to tackle – even if the folks around them haven’t wanted to believe them. Who likes knowing that some mothers actually can’t love?
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Once I started reading Milk and Venom, I couldn't stop. I was mesmerized by this novel about two sisters struggling as adults with the legacy of their toxic mother and trying to understand their own choices and behaviours. It's a rare book that comes right out and states that there are some mothers who don't love their children and thus do not deserve to be loved in return. But this book also gives readers a reason to believe that children of such mothers can still succeed in life and love!
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Susan S. Senstad has written a superb, fascinating, moving book about a mother and daughter caught in the adventures of Rome and Italian life, with a deep psychological background, and set of psychological conflicts, back in the States. The protagonist, Millicent, desperately sees and seeks to avoid, self-knowledge. A riveting read! The story of Everywoman, perhaps, and of every mother-daughter relationship as Millicent’s young daughter, Alice, also has to discover who and what she is…It is a splendid voyage into the lives of the time, and a particular family’s conflicts, and Rome, as it was.
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This is a book that makes you believe you know the people portrayed, while making you believe you've been to a place you've never seen. A perfect balance of what you would want to say to someone (if only we weren't all so damn polite all the time!) -- and what you would HOPE to say to yourself -- if you ever found yourself in the situations... the relationships... described. Sensitive and strong, sexy without guilt, this book will have you listening to that inner voice that dares to question a world that says you MUST love someone... even if that someone doesn't reciprocate, care and worse: Isn't even aware of the harm they do. "Milk and Venom" allows the reader to imagine a world where it is A.O.K. to walk away.
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I have just finished Milk and Venom – intense, a whirlwind of feelings, both good and bad. I felt like I was there. The female characters are each very unique, strong and fully expressed: Hermina, Geena and of course her sister, Millicent, whose awakening took just as long as it needed to. I also loved the ‘evolving from child to teen’ Alice. The character of the sisters’ mother, Phyllis, is complex and destructive with no insight into the true feelings of others. The author has poured tremendous skill and emotion into every page of this book.
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Thomas E. Kennedy Author of novels, short story collections and works of non-fiction
“I like this very much! Especially the way the author talks about Millicent’s being a woman who thinks about being a woman in relation to men, who thinks about sex. She is as attracted to men as men are to women, and that is a delight — liberating, even. (I mean for me — to hear women thinking that way!) And she has humor, too. Millicent speaks to both sexes! And I like the author’s obvious knowledge of the Roman setting, the Italian setting, and the Italian society. Most important is that this is a well-moving narrative with strong characters and an exotic setting which is very appealing. It will appeal to anyone who has ever wished that She/he could have lived in Rome. …Marvelous!”
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