The Reader's Shelf: Read My Lips: Memorable Deaf Fictional Characters, April 15, 2011
Apr 15, 2011The 34 days between March 13 and April 15 contain historic milestones for the deaf community and are distinguished as Deaf History Month. In honor of this annual celebration, why not spend time with a few fictional deaf characters. From classics to mysteries, historical tales to contemporary thrillers, deaf protagonists allow the hearing community to experience just a taste of life without sound. [For more deaf literature, see “Reading in Silence: Deaf Memoirs,” The Reader’s Shelf, LJ 9/1/10; bit.ly/erTweL.—Ed.]
Carson McCullers’s masterpiece, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Mariner: Houghton Harcourt. 2004. ISBN 9780618526413. pap. $13.95), is set in a Southern town of the 1930s. The central character is John Singer, a deaf-mute, who moves from having one very close friend, also deaf, to having four hearing people invest him with their desires and frustrations. He is puzzled sometimes by the inability of the people around him to relate to one another, even as they come to depend on him emotionally. This powerhouse of a novel, as searing as it is compassionate, also focuses on Mick Kelly, a musically gifted girl who grows into her teens watching those around her being worn down by circumstance and losing, as she matures, something of herself.
Keeping Silent by Carla Damron (Worldwide Lib: Harlequin. 2002. ISBN 9780373264216. pap. $5.99. OSI) introduces Caleb, a South Carolina social worker/therapist, and his sculptor brother, Sam. When Sam’s fiancée is found brutally murdered, Caleb is called to the scene as the police suspect Sam of using one of his creations as a deadly weapon. While there are other potential suspects, Sam, deaf since age 16, withdraws into himself and looks increasingly guilty. As the tightly plotted mystery spins out, Sam’s uncooperative stance forces Caleb to get involved in the investigation. Rich with secondary characters and full of local color, this debut mystery was followed by Spider Blue and Death in Zooville.
Murder on Lexington Avenue (Berkley: Penguin Group [USA]. 2010. ISBN 9780425234372. $24.95), Victoria Thompson’s 12th “Gaslight” mystery, takes readers to 1890s New York City, where Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy, the single parent of a deaf son, is called to the murder scene of the rich and prominent Mr. Wooten. Soon Wooten’s deaf daughter, Electra, becomes a suspect. The social realities of New York’s Gilded Age threaten to impede Malloy’s investigation, but his close friend Sarah Brandt, a widowed midwife who was formerly part of the upper strata, ably assists him through the deep waters of the case. With a sharp eye for detail, Thompson fills her novel with the history of the sign language movement, exploring how two schools of thought for deaf education (lip reading vs. signing) competed with each other.
Silence is Golden (Perseverance: John Daniel. 2003. ISBN 9781880284667. $13.95), the sixth title in Penny Warner’s Connor Westphal mysteries, explores the controversy in the deaf community over cochlear implants. In this outing, Connor, the deaf editor of the local newspaper in Flat Skunk, CA, continues her relationship with hunk Dan Smith, a former New York policeman, and manages to entangle herself in the investigation of an old property claim and the recent murder of her former lover’s ex-wife. Driving all these complications is the sudden interest in gold in Flat Skunk, even though the local vein played out long ago. Murder and mayhem ensue as the entertaining mystery unfolds at a fast clip.
Joanne Greenberg’s In This Sign (Owl: Holt. 1984. ISBN 9780805007220. pap. $16.99) thrusts readers into the saga of Abel and Janice Ryder, both profoundly deaf and raised in a special school for deaf children. Leaving school together in the 1920s, they are unprepared for the harshness and isolation of life among those who can hear. Janice becomes wary and bitter and works obsessively, even after the birth of their hearing daughter, Margaret, who becomes for them a source of pride and jealousy. Greenberg (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden) weaves Margaret’s perceptions with those of her beloved parents, resulting in an immersive experience that vividly brings to life their strong sense of isolation from the hearing world and from each other.
T.C. Boyle’s Talk Talk (Penguin Pr: Penguin Group [USA]. 2007. ISBN 9780143112150. pap. $14) opens with the wrongful arrest of Dana Halter, a young deaf teacher in California, accused of a string of felonies. Dana and her boyfriend, Bridger, discover that she is the victim of identity theft. Out on bail and determined to clear her name, Dana and Bridger begin a high-speed, cross-country pursuit of Peck Wilson, the real culprit. Boyle is a master storyteller and expertly shows the disruptions caused by identity theft in a credit-driven society, as well as the changes in Dana and Bridger’s relationship. Boyle’s first thriller is fast, wonderfully characterized, and deft.
This column was contributed by Sharon Kirkes, a Reference Librarian with the Jacksonville Public Library System, FL
| Author Information |
| Neal Wyatt compiles LJ’s online feature Wyatt’s World and is the author of The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Nonfiction (ALA Editions, 2007). She is a collection development and readers’ advisory librarian from Virginia. Those interested in contributing to The Reader’s Shelf should contact her directly at Readers_Shelf@comcast.net |
