I held out for as long as I could. But I can hold out no longer.
I’ve gotta talk about books.
If you’ve watched even one episode of Hearing Things with Julie and Brad, you know that we both like to read. Ending each show with a book recommendation not only shows how we’re more than just our deafness, it also shows what we like to read. Not all the books have anything to do with hearing loss (or deaf gain). In fact, very few books have anything to do with it. The reason is twofold; the purpose of the books is to show we’re more than our hearing loss. But perhaps more importantly, there aren’t all that many books on the subject.
My struggling to ignore my hearing loss most certainly affected what books I looked to read. But once I started looking, I had to keep looking. While it’s changing, for many moons there simply weren’t many books on the topic. I was challenged to dig deeper to look for them. That was a challenge I accepted with alacrity. And in the hopes that reading our blogs and watching our shows has piqued your interest to read more about hearing loss, I’ve got a trio of books for you.
I took notes on each of these books as I read them and collected them into blog entries. The non-fiction ones feature quotes from the book that made me stop and, quite frequently, gasp. That means this post will be a little different. I’m going to pull out a few notes from each book to give you a sense of what really struck me. If you’re curious to learn more, I’ll include both a link to my blog entry to see even more of my thoughts and a link to pick up the book.
Shouting Won’t Help by Katherine Bouton
Read more of my thoughts | Buy the book
Ms. Bouton was a senior editor focusing on science and society for the New York times when she suddenly started losing her hearing. Proving how good a journalist she is, she documented her own research into her hearing loss and hearing loss in general. It was stuff with so much good info. Here are three of my favorite bits.
- She claimed that “absurd” comes from the Latin “ab” meaning “away from” and “surdus” meaning ‘deafness’. (page 22) Being the word nerd that I am, I loved this. Language is so full of fossilized insults, that I could see this being true. Language is also full of folk etymologies, sorry friends, golf is not an acronym for Gentleman Only, Ladies Forbidden, that I could also see this as being one of them. So I thumbed open the etymology dictionary on my phone (as one does) to find out if that’s where “absurd” comes from…it is! https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=absurd
- White noise has all the frequencies in it. (36) I did not realize that! But I should have, since the color white has all the colors in it.
- Cochlear Implant surgery, unlike chest surgery, is considered noninvasive. (143) My mind rebels at this. How can drilling a hole in someone’s head, and putting something in there, be considered noninvasive? I get it, fewer complications, less of the inside of you exposed to the outside of you, but still. It seems counter-intuitive to me.
The Invention of Miracles by Katie Booth
Read more of my thoughts | Buy the book
This is a biography of Alexander Graham Bell. I’d known that he invented the telephone (sorta), that both his mother and his wife were Deaf, and even that he was a proponent of eugenics later in life. But as with all examples of hero worshipped historical figures, it’s more complicated than all good or all bad. This book presented the man in all his triumphantly troublesome glory.
- Yes, Bell received the first patent for the telephone. Yes, it takes skill and determination to create the device he created. He absolutely must be given his due for that. However, it’s highly likely that AGB got a look at the sections of Elisha Gray’s already-filed patent application. AGB’s father-in-law had connections in Washington that gave Bell an unfair advantage. No one is supposed to be able to see another person’s patent. Mr. Gray, whom Bell (and everyone else) knew to be an inventor that had already improved the telegraph lines, had earlier in the day filed a patent that was very similar to Bell’s. By seeing it, AGB was given a chance to modify his own application so it wasn’t conflicting, or as they call it, in interference. He also didn’t even have a working model based on either the original or modified patent. (page 150)
- The Milan Conference was a conference held in Milan (shocker, right?) where a bunch of hearing people decided the fate of deaf people. They started the decades-long ban of sign languages in the teaching of the deaf. It was devastating. Before the day before the Milan Conference, the First National Conference of the Deaf was held in the US. Unlike Milan it served as a forum for the deaf to make their hands seen in regards to such things as Oralism. (233) The National Association of the Deaf (still around today) came out of this conference. (235) Bell wasn’t there. (236)
- Here’s a quite two-fer: AGB helped found National Geographic. (273) and AGB built a rudimentary metal detector to try to find the bullet in President Garfield. It failed. (220) Morbid irony: the unwashed probing hands of the doctors caused the infection that ultimately killed him.
True Biz by Sara Novic
Read more of my thoughts | Buy the book
This one is a work of fiction. It’s the first fiction book to feature deafness that I read. It was also the first such book that I saw patrons checking out at my library. But it wasn’t just what some call “bleeding heart liberals” trying to make the publishing world more inclusive and thus giving it a bump it doesn’t deserve. It most certainly deserved the bump. It was a fantastically written poignant story.
Before I get to my highlights, a word about the title. True Biz is proof – if proof still is needed – that ASL is a real language. It’s an idiom. It means something like, “is what you said the truth?!”.
- I always have a soft spot for wounded kids and Charlie’s wonky cochlear implant finally forcing her out of “regular” school into a deaf residency school hit that spot. Hard. Her growth throughout the book made me happy. The way Ms. Novic drops in scenes that explore Black ASL, the way she has a character who just happens to be gay and not have it define her, the way she puts in lesson plans on ASL, Deaf History, and Anarchy that make cameos at regular intervals also make me happy.
- The medical profession’s insistence that deafness is something to be fixed, capitalism’s role in keeping leaking cochlear implants in the heads of people because the company can’t afford to take the bath that would result by recalling them all, society’s role in deeming deaf schools expendable are all themes the author didn’t need to make up or stretch the truth with. And that’s maddening
- I like a happy ending. It’s part of why it took me decades to admit that The Empire Strikes Back is a better story than Return of the Jedi. I wanted my favorite episode of The Holy Trinity to be the happy ending one. While this book doesn’t end with someone losing a hand or someone else being frozen in carbonite, it does leave things unfinished. And you know what? The book is better because of it. So many of the questions she poses don’t have an answer. So leaving them unanswered is perfect.
There you have it. Three DHH recommendations from a DHH dude.
See it to be it.
Representation matters.
Escapism heals.
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