Innocents of Oppression: Deaf Students in the UK Need A Better Education @nicksturley

I had some background in deaf issues before I read Innocents of Oppression by Nick Sturley.  My most recent related read was Inside Deaf Culture which I reviewed last year on Shomeret: The Masked Reviewer here.  What interested me about Sturley’s novel is that I’ve never read anything about the deaf in the UK.   Apparently the predominance of exclusive oralism in deaf education has continued in the UK.   This doesn’t just mean that lip reading and speaking are encouraged.  It means that signing is prohibited in the classroom.  I wanted to understand why this situation continues unchanged.

                                                         

                                                 

Innocents of Oppression dramatizes the impact of exclusive oralism on a group of UK deaf students at a boarding school for deaf boys.  Those that were not totally deaf tended be more successful with the oral method.  All the students were required to wear hearing aids even if they were completely deaf.  Instructors had microphones and thought that they could somehow reach students with no residual hearing by increasing their volume.  Teachers who rely solely on oral communication could shout into their microphones all day and still wouldn’t be heard by the students who had no hearing.    This is common sense.  I can’t imagine what the teachers, or the school administration were thinking.  It’s as if they didn’t know that it’s possible for someone to be completely unable to hear.  It’s like assuming that the blind are just near sighted, and requiring them to wear prescription glasses.  If they were that uninformed, they obviously shouldn’t have been allowed to teach deaf children.

Oralism wasn’t the only barrier to a good education in the lives of these students.  Bullying is a major theme in this novel.   This is why I don’t agree with Sturley’s title.  Students who engage in bullying or who react to bullying with equally violent behavior can’t be considered “innocents”.  While it was certainly true that their backgrounds often motivated their conduct, they were still guilty of harming their fellow students.  Breaking the cycle of abuse isn’t easy, but victimizers shouldn’t be given a free pass because they were once victims. 

Although I was moved by the resolution of the book, there was a long info dump that preceded it dealing with what had happened in the lives of the characters in the thirty years since they’d been together in boarding school.  While it’s very likely that in real life a conversation between two old friends from boarding school would consist of catching up on everyone they knew, fiction should be more entertaining.  I would have preferred selected flashbacks. 

I believe that an earlier info dump on deaf history shouldn’t have been included in the novel in any form.  The narrative purpose was bringing the protagonist up to speed, but the probable purpose of the author was educating readers.   He should have included a bibliography with recommended resources on deaf history, or placed that entire info dump on a web page and given readers the URL.

Nevertheless, I was interested to learn about the first deaf Member of Parliament, Francis Humberston MacKenzie (1754-1815).  The mention of Auslan led me to discover that Australian Aborigine peoples have ancient traditional sign languages that were developed for situations when speech was taboo.  I already knew about Native American sign languages that were used for communication between individuals who didn’t share a spoken language.   I consider all forms of communication intriguing. 

I do wish that Sturley hadn’t mentioned recreational swimming with dolphins.  The capture of dolphins for this purpose traumatizes them.  See this article from World Animal Protection and this article from Right Tourism. My concern for the rights of intelligent beings extends to non-human species. 

There was some good characterization and character interaction in this book and I learned a great deal about deaf education in the UK.  British families who can’t afford to send their deaf children to the U.S. for a better education need more advocacy.  I’m sure that this is Sturley’s central purpose and I applaud him for that.

Website with Video (subtitled) http://innocentsofoppression.com/
Article about the author in Limping Chicken: http://limpingchicken.com/2013/09/12/nick-sturley-how-having-usher-syndrome-changed-my-life-part-1-my-first-diagnosis/

                                                 

Just a Little Something I Bought...

I didn't intend it, but Sundays on the blog have become Whatever Day, when I share random things I think you all may like, may find interesting, or may want to try/buy yourself.

For me, Etsy is the new Ebay. I had a bad experience on Ebay with one of those sellers in China and ended up with a product not as described and out of my dough. Since then, I've completely shut down my Ebay and turned to Etsy, where I've had no trouble and I'm supporting small businesses. We all win...except Ebay. LOL

Last week I acquired and shared with you a girl-power tee shirt. This week, I nabbed myself a deaf-power tee shirt from a shop that makes custom tee shirts at a very reasonable price--the most reasonable I could find. (Once again, no, I'm not being paid for this and no, I did not receive a discount. I'm just sharing this because I can.)

And I had this made:

I was able to choose the shirt color and the font.

If you've been following this blog a while or have read my memoir, you'll understand why I chose those words. Though it took me a long time to realize it, it seems other people have a problem with my disability more than I do. I've been denied jobs and all kinds of things, just because I'm deaf.

I've learned to work around it. Why can't others?

That being said, I will confess to wishing I could just go to the movies like other people (the theater near me stopped with open captioning altogether) and I've finally been convinced to check into a cochlear implant in my left year--which doesn't work at all, and when I was talking to my audiologist about the 50, 70k bill that would be involved in the process, I confessed I thought I should get funding from those who disqualified me from my occupation years ago. I said, "They're the ones who have a problem with my hearing loss, who say I can't do my job because of it. They should pay to fix it."

And that was part of the inspiration behind this shirt.

Is there something you'd like to say on a shirt?

The shop I ordered this from is No Sleeves, No Problems and the link to their shop and also to the listing for the custom tee shirt are all above.

Silence: Girl with Dreams of Broadway Loses Hearing & Finds Love

Stella has big dreams, Broadway dreams, and she's been blessed with a great voice. But just when things start to look like they're really happening for her, she goes to party (I don't consider this a spoiler as I KNEW it was going to be a party) and gets hurt. She gets hurt in a manner that takes away her hearing. And while our (deaf people) voices vibrate and we can control our volume for the most part, deafness usually results in tone deafness--I know this. So naturally, Stella fears her dreams have gone down the toilet, and quickly.

And she doesn't know how to do, how to be, anyone besides who she was before.

I appreciated that story line and I could relate, even though my hearing loss was gradual, even though I was able to properly prepare myself, as much as one can for such a circumstance, I got it. The day is happening around me. Not to me.

Stella is only 15, so it's a shock to her. She wallows in self pity for much of the story. I confess this irritated me after a while. I understood it, mind you, but it still irritated me, partly because I couldn't help but see all the advantages she instantly had that certainly weren't available in my day. She instantly has captioning (I didn't get that until my teens. Don't even get me started on how difficult it was to understand the tv until then), a cell phone with text messaging (I was in my twenties), and cochlear implant(s).

And yet, she being 15, she doesn't realize all the things she's lucky to have. This made sense, but doesn't mean I didn't find her attitude a little frustrating.

I must say I appreciate the research the author did into all this. I think teenagers will learn a lot from this book and perhaps see the everyday things they take for granted.

And then a boy vows to show Stella in 17 days how she can live with her new disability, that she can still be happy and do things. And with this comes new insight and growth. I thought I knew who I was. But I was limiting myself to being one thing. Defining myself by my talent. There's more to me than that. More I can give. More I can share.

The author tackled a lot of things in this story: abuse, trauma, hearing loss, anxiety, divorce, stuttering. And her writing is beautiful. It's really too beautiful though, nearly poetic. And while this prose would be fabulous in literary fiction or poetry, it seemed out of place in a young adult book.

The tightness in my chest begins to loosen like a rosebud beginning to bloom in the sun. Petals slowly open.

I don't know many people--adults or teenagers--who sit there and think in metaphors like that. And it got to be a lot, so much that I began to skim at points.

I love that this heroine isn't just cured. Too often when deaf heroines are tackled, it seems they can't have happy endings without suddenly being cured, like you can't be deaf/HoH and have a happy ending-an insult, really. I love the cochlear implant story line but at the same time I feel a great educational opportunity was squandered, as not much time was spent on them. What does she notice after they're implanted? What's it feel like? What's in there exactly? And I'm confused as to the one bandage when she was deaf on both sides. They only go in one side? More details would have been appreciated.

The romance was a over dramatic, their feelings for each other a bit over the top, but they are fifteen and at that age, everything is over dramatic. At times, however, they said things way advanced for their ages. And to be perfectly honest, it's easier to read lips when people speak normally. I can't say I really bought the "I only understand him because he stutters" thing, because as a lipreader, I can say that would make it harder.

But all in all, it's worth the read. It should be on every teenager's to read list this year.

I received a digital ARC of this via Netgalley.

Joint Review: Breaking the Silence (Hard Drive Series #2) by Tricia Andersen

Lacey and Tara are doing a joint review of this title.

Here's the blurb:
MMA Bad Boy Rico Choate falls for Avery, a deaf Marine – but will she stick around when she learns of his career in the octagon?

Rico Choate is a MMA bad boy with a love them and leave them attitude. That is until he meets Avery Walker, a deaf Marine who lost her hearing when her transport is destroyed in an I.E.D explosion in Afghanistan. He falls hard for her, even learning sign language from his friend, Chloe, so he can talk to her. However, Avery’s hatred for all celebrities forces Rico to keep his career in mixed martial arts a secret. How long can he keep such huge parts of his life separate? And if she does find out will she leave him or put her stubborn pride aside to stay with the man she loves?

Tara: Okay, Lacey. I must confess I had a very hard time with this hero at first. He comes across as such an asshole! I almost abandoned the story, I disliked him so much. It wasn't until the ....55% or thereabouts point that he began to earn some major points with me.

He grinned, and he knew his smile was as dazzling as the summer highway. I am just that incredible.

“You are beautiful. And I certainly was lucky to have you last night. But one night was all I wanted from you. Would you have had sex with me if I'd told you it was a one night deal?"

But then he rushes to learn sign language just to talk to this girl and he sticks up for her at the carnival and there's this huge moment when he realizes how badly he's treated women. 

What's your take on Rico?

Lacey: I found him to be very arrogant and unlikable in the beginning. The way he thinks of himself is as though he is God's gift to women...or more like the world. And as soon as he sees Avery, he wants her. I was kinda put off then as well because I wanted to see him do the work to get her-such as learning to sign to ask her out.

As I read on, I started to like him and I could tell he really cared for Avery, and her well being. So he eventually won me over on being a good guy. Perhaps Avery was able to bring him back down to earth. She gave him a reason to live, aside from being a MMA fighter.

Tara: I liked that, his having to actually work for a woman for a change. I think, however, he
learned sign language way too fast. Fluent in just weeks? I get he's a determined guy. I
mean, look at how much time he spends training, but....eh...I've attempted to learn and it's
not likely he'd be fluent that quick. I agree with you on the insta-love.

What's your opinion on Avery? Did you figure out her age? I had some trouble with that. I'm curious what conclusion you came to. I decided that after 5 years of the Marines and a couple years of recuperation and learning to sign, she'd be around 30, but the whole "I hate all celebrities because of ONE basketball player" seemed really young and immature.

Don't get me wrong. I loved her character otherwise. She's so kind, sweet, and the work she does for Veterans is awesome. But...she's not very Marine-like or independent.

I can give her the whole "I don't want to drive thing" even though I think it made her kind of a hypocrite with all her, "I'm a Marine, not a princess" boasting. She sure acted like a princess. And she becomes a weeping mess after one day of not hearing from Rico? Seriously?

Lacey: I never figured out her age, but I assumed late twenties or early thirties. I did like her for the most part. She didn't let the fact that she was deaf hold her back. She still went to school to get her degree. She did have to depend on people to drive her places, if I had been through the things she had, I might not be able to drive either. Every person reacts to situations differently, so I didn't hold it against her that she didn't speak or drive.

Tara: As a deaf person who strives to be independent, lip-reading is a necessity for me. I was bothered at first that she didn't lip read. Again with the "I'm independent" and when she's really not stuff...but I emailed the author and asked why she didn't have Avery reading lips and she said that Avery over-embraces deafness. Perhaps it's a barrier from the rest of the world. I can understand that, but it didn't fit with her character, who she constantly claimed to be. And I could get past this after reading the author's explanation, BUT the point is I had to email the author and ask. This was not made clear to me in the story. It should be clearer in the story.

Lacey: I've only met a few deaf people in my life, and while I've not met Tara in person, we have grown very close over the years with an online relationship. I did recently encounter two deaf women at a gym, and at first I had no idea they were. They walked up to the trainer I was working with and began talking to him. Sure, they spoke a little different, but I didn't think much of it. It was when the two ladies needed a sign they'd read clarified is when one said they were both deaf.

I don't know sign language, and neither does my trainer.So I did find it odd that so many people in this book knew how to, and could communicate in full sentences with Avery. Such as Rico, he learned sign language so fast.  He could sign and understand everything Avery said. Realistically, I would think he'd still need her to write a lot of what she needed, or him. However, this is a book of fiction, so I guess to progress the story along, the author wrote it that way.

I would have liked to see Avery read lips. It's just odd to me that she was so stubborn not to learn this when she needs it to communicate. I didn't always understand how she was taking classes. Did she bring a sign language interpreter with her?

Tara: Yes, it said at one point she had to watch an interpreter. She got all distracted one day 'cause she was daydreaming of Rico and missed some signs. The actual mention of the interpreter was just one sentence though, so it could have been missed.

Lacey: I know it sounds like I'm being hard on the author here. I really did enjoy the story, but these were aspects I had a hard time with and really made me stop and think.

I'm curious, Tara, how many people have you encountered who could sign? How does your current job accommodate you?

Tara: I can count on ONE hand all the hearing people I have met in my life who knew how to sign. So that is actually a quibble of mine in the book: how just about everyone Avery meets conveniently knows how to sign, except of course the hero. The people she works with, Chloe, Max, Mark. My workplace has never accommodated me in that manner. For me it's always been, "You're in our world. You figure it out. We're not doing anything special for you." And I've worked a variety of places. Maybe I need to become a barista? LOL

Lacey: I'm gonna take a moment to review a few points that I liked. I liked Chloe and Max a lot. I read this book first (it's the second in a stand-alone series). I will go back and read book 1. While it sounds like I picked the story apart early due to the heroine being deaf, it's only because Ms. Andersen put in a topic that got me thinking and talking. For the, I applaud the author. The fact that she got Tara and I talking is an accomplishment. This was not a book I read, put aside, and moved onto the next one.

I will be going back to read the first one, and I'm looking forward to it.

Tara: I liked them too, Max and Chloe. I noticed a reference to her having some kind of Vomiting Syndrome--another disability.

There were more things that didn't work for me in this story than did...but I thought the romance was really sweet once I got past the insta-love and I appreciate the author writing about heroines with struggles and disabilities in this series as she has been.

And hey, let's not forget to address the author's writing style. How'd you like the style?

Lacey: I think the author did a good job. She can tell a story. She knows how to add conflict to a story, stretch out the black moment, and not make the couple have an instant back together (something I myself as a writer sometimes struggle with). There were a few editing issues in the book, but I don't hold that against the author at all since authors typically aren't editors.

Tara: Agree. Great writing.

Lacey's Rating:

Tara's Rating:

Tara: And hey, guess what? We have the author with us today briefly telling us about the most challenging thing about writing a deaf character. I had to chuckle and nod my head as I read it. It is indeed very hard to drive and communicate when you're dependent on visual communication... I have to tell passengers, "I can't look at you right now, so shut up!" Please welcome Tricia Andersen.

When I started writing Breaking the Silence, I knew writing Avery, a deaf Marine, wouldn’t be easy. I didn’t realize just how difficult it would be. The first hurdle I had to jump was how to write her dialogue. With printed word it’s very difficult to interpret sign language. After talking to my proofreader Molly, who also knows ASL, we decided to treat it as our publisher treats any foreign language and put it in italics.

However, the greatest challenge wasn’t Avery, it was the other characters especially Rico. There were many times that I would write a scene and realized his body placement would make it near impossible for Avery to see his hands or lips. And the four hour car ride from Minneapolis to Des Moines where I originally thought they could get to know each other? Yeah…not without a major accident. There were several rewrites to put Rico in the right place to talk to Avery. But in the end it was completely worth it. These two are my favorite characters.

Why Someone Should Write a Novel About First Lady Grace Coolidge

Eleanor Roosevelt. Jackie Kennedy. Hilary Clinton. Those are the names most often heard when folks talk about first ladies. Those are the ladies we think of the most.

Grace Coolidge. Can't say that name has ever been at the forefront of my mind. I have a coworker to thank for inadvertently bringing this former first lady to my attention. It all started with her US Mint (coin) catalog. In it, I saw a coin with the finger spellings of USA on one side. The front of this coin, however, has a picture of Grace Coolidge. "What did this first lady have to do with the deaf?" I wondered.

The answer: she was a lip-reading instructor at the Clarke School for the Deaf. 

It was at this very school that she met Calvin Coolidge, her future husband. She was apparently watering the flowers one day when she looked up at the next-door boarding house and saw her future husband and president of the U.S. shaving in front of a mirror in his long underwear, a hat, and nothing else. Her laughter caught his attention...and love story takes off from there. Even as a first lady, her interest in the education and methods of communication for the deaf and hard of hearing continued.

Coolidge was at first a Vice President. His lovely wife was said to be an excellent hostess, the most popular lady in the capitol. She was voted one of America's twelve greatest living women in 1931 in Good Housekeeping and received a gold medal from the National Institute of Social Science as well as an honorary degree from Smith.

There's something secretive too, in her college years. She had to drop out and live with a widowed aunt due to some "health problem". And of course, every marriage has its strife. It seems the president perhaps put her under strict orders not to share her opinions with the American public, giving the impression she had no opinion, which I seriously doubt was the case. She may have had some influence behind closed doors, however. There was also a tiny hint of scandal or an incident blown out of proportion with a handsome single secret service agent. Her husband may have had a jealous streak, evident perhaps also in the fact he would not let her take a flight with the dashing Charles Lindbergh.

She was the mother of two children, was involved extensively in the Red Cross and loved animals and sports.

There's a lot that could be done with a novel about this remarkable lady. Come on, historical writers!

Read more about her here. I found this site to be the most enlightening and educational. They also share a remarkable video of Mrs. Coolidge meeting Helen Keller. Photos are from Wiki Commons.

Something Deaf People Really Need...

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles via
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I don't think anyone listens to me. I don't know if the "right" people will read this post, the people who can do something about the situation. But I figure the more people who know, mention it, talk about it, the more likely someone in the situation of doing it will be to hear it...my plea.

Last weekend I went to my first opera. I saw Madame Butterfly. It wasn't really my kind of story. I sat there thinking, "Boy, they sure take a long time to say what they want to say...and all this ado over a man? A douchebag man? Come on, Madame Butterfly, it's been three years. Ask for a hall pass. He's so not worth this."

But I'm going again in March. Despite the fact there were only four bathroom stalls for hundreds of women. Despite the fact the stories aren't really my thing.

Can you guess why?

They have captions!!! Right there above the stage! On a digital screen! So for once, I'm on the same level as everyone else. Nobody there understood Italian. They had to read the captions, same as me.

But it was so easy to caption this thing. The captioning screen was so visible yet at the same time discreet. You don't have to look at it if you don't want to.

So why can't they do this to musicals and plays? There are tons of plays and musicals I would LOVE to see and enjoy: Chicago, It's Good Work if You Can Get It, 9 to 5, Bluestockings. But I don't bother going 'cause it's just lovely sounding blah blah blah blah to me.

So here's my plea. If there's anyone out there who can make this happen, I know I'm not the only deaf person in the world who is missing out on lots of cool things due to lack of captioning. We finally have open-caption night at the movie theaters. Let's bring captions to the stages too. PLEASE. And don't even get me started on comedy clubs...

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can possibly get something started? Should I make a petition? Who would I send it to? Comments welcome.

Cromwell's War, A Deaf Maidservant, A Confused Highwaywoman Make for an Exciting Historical Tale in Shadow on the Highway

Nobody except a deaf person knows how it feels to lie in the inky blackness, unable to know what has woken you, unable to hear, unable to see. The way the dark closes in as if you're locked in a box, muffled from the rest of the world. The fear that some danger might be behind you, and you'd never know until it was too late.

Deborah Swift has done a superb job capturing the life of a deaf person, the everyday trials, the little discomforts, such as darkness. Darkness robs us of everything. We are so dependent upon on our eyes. I'm amazed that she understood this. She even captured the difficulty of lip reading, how we must get used to the way a person's mouth moves before we can read their lips well. Ms. Swift portrayed this frustration very well in Abi's dealing with the cook, her new "boss" of sorts.

I saw some reviewers complain that they had doubts a deaf girl could possibly read lips so well, but as a deaf person, I must brag that I can read lips so well or fake it when necessary that a lot of times people do not even know I'm deaf. So there. LOL. However, I will say that reading lips of side profiles is a bit beyond me, and I am frankly amazed that the heroine was able to do that. But then, we do what we must to survive.

The 411: Abi is a deaf 15-year-old in Cromwell's England. (The war between Parliament and the Royalists is ongoing.) She's leaving home for the first time to work in the manor under Lady Katherine. But when she arrives at the manor, the novel takes a Gothic feel. There's much treachery afoot.

Lady Katherine lives in fear of her husband and step-father and overseer. They beat her, take her money, control everything. There's the constant switching of sides in the war, looting, lies, secreting of correspondence. An evil man who doesn't belong there... There's just an incredible amount of bad things going on. And oh, did I mention there's a highway robber who holds people at gunpoint whilst never saying a word?

And in the middle of all this, Abi is struggling to keep secrets from everyone and finds herself torn constantly, between Kate and the overseer, between Kate and her brother, between brother and father, between Diggers and Royalists... The Diggers. I had never heard of them before. There is nothing I love more than picking up a book and finding myself not only entertained, but educated. Thank you, Ms. Swift. I learned something new.

To get to the point, I really enjoyed this story and cannot wait to see what happens to Abi next. Only one thing prevented me from absolutely loving aka five-biking it. Lady Katherine really got on my last nerve. She confused me and I wanted to slap Abi at times for staying by this woman's side. She claimed she wanted to be a Digger, yet at her manor she bossed Abi around mercilessly and lorded her title over her. She didn't even dress herself. She's able to hold up people at gunpoint and take their jewels but can't stand up to a crippled man. And after all she does, after all the trouble she causes Abi and her brother, why in the heck does Abi stick around without pay? I can excuse Abi; she's only 15, but Lady Katherine just really got under my skin. Sometimes the things she says make no sense either. "Thomas never offers to accompany me. And partly I am glad, for I dislike my step-father." Thomas is her husband; her step-father is Simon. What does disliking Simon have to do whether or not she walks with Thomas? Though in her defense, in her eyes, they were quite possibly one and the same. They both mistreated her.

I have a feeling book two will be different though and I honestly can't wait. I bought this on Amazon.

What Inspired the Deaf Maidservant in Shadow on the Highway? Q&A with Deborah Swift #FREEBIE

When I heard about Ms. Swift's new book, the story of a highwaywoman with a deaf maidservant who grows suspicious, I immediately wanted to read it and I also had a few questions for her. Until I can through my review pile and reach Shadow on the Highway, here is a Q&A to whet your appetites.

Tara: Did the real Katherine have a deaf maidservant?

Deborah: No, I’m afraid not. She is purely fictional – but real to me! The idea of using a deaf girl as my main character for this book came when I came across a fascinating article about a boy called Alexander Popham, a 17th century deaf child who had been taught to speak. I was trawling the internet for some information on the Royal Society, and the article just caught my eye. This was apparently one of the first attempts to educate deaf children in any systematic way, and the notebook detailing this method still exists. What a wonderful discovery! So the idea of using a deaf protagonist for Shadow on the Highway gradually took root, initially from my interest in Alexander Popham, especially when I realised that it would make for a lot of tension if my character Abigail, Lady Katherine Fanshawe’s maid, was deaf.

As the book is about a highwaywoman, and would probably involve a lot of night-time action, I imagined that this would be even more challenging for someone who relied on their vision to communicate. Although Abigail is deaf, I did not want this to be her only defining characteristic, or for the book to be only about her deafness – though perhaps her deafness makes her notice more than her peers, and I needed this observant quality. I wanted the deaf character to be integrated so that the book was more about Abigail as a person; her journey as a character. I looked around for historical fiction books featuring deaf characters and found there were hardly any, so it spurred me on to create Abigail, who is a purely fictional character. I imagined her as a sister to Ralph Chaplin, who is mentioned in the legend as Lady Katherine’s lover.

Tara: I presume you are a hearing person? If so, was it intimidating, writing a deaf POV?

Deborah:I am a hearing person, but this did not deter me from creating a deaf protagonist. After all, I often have men in my books but I’m not a man. A writer must be able to imagine themselves into someone else’s shoes. For me this is one of the joys of researching, and the privilege of being a writer – it gives you a window into a wider, richer, more interesting world. The challenge was to make Abigail believable to deaf readers who might be looking for her to reflect their experience in some way, and this made me nervous, that I might not be able to fulfil those expectations!

I looked to memoirs and biographies for my inspiration first, and then to websites and associations, and finally to talking to deaf people about their teenage years when I felt I had enough knowledge not to appear completely stupid! I have a few friends too, who are deaf or HoH, so I collared them for interviews!

It soon became clear that every person uses their own unique strategies depending on their personality, their degree of deafness, and on whether they are born deaf or became deaf later in life. In the 17^th century there was no formalised schooling or assistance for deaf or hard of hearing children, so people had to rely on their own resources to make themselves part of the community. In my novel, Abi used to be a hearing child, but caught the measles (called ‘messels’ in the 17^th century) and the fever made her deaf. She is still coming to terms with her deafness, but I did not want this to be a ‘sob story’. Abi has a very practical character. For her, I thought that lip-reading would be the first choice, as she had already some facility with spoken words, and came from an educated family where she had seen them written down. Her mother teaches her to read so she can communicate by writing, and her brother Ralph also helps her out in conversation with simple home-invented signs. The potential of signing as a proper system was only just beginning to be recognised.

I needed to know how much a deaf person could learn to read lips, and how feasible it would be for Abi to understand complex conversations. My research into this revealed that (as probably most hearing people do) I had actually underestimated her capabilities. The memoir ‘What’s that Pig Outdoors’ by Henry Kisor showed me that for someone like Abi, her lip-reading was likely to be extremely sophisticated – given a clear speaker, (who is not shouting or mouthing at her) a known context, and not too many unfamiliar terms of reference. Of course for today’s deaf teenagers, who are usually signers too, and have been given the benefits of better education and the chance to build communities through signing, this degree of facility might seem unlikely, and indeed most want to preserve their signing as their first language. But this option was not open to Abi, and as Henry Kisor shows, with determination and with little other choice, lip-reading combined with perceptiveness could lead to a high degree of understanding from watching lips and expressions alone. After all, people are often amazed by magicians on TV such as Derren Brown, who can read subtle signs in our faces and body language after intensive training.

But – how to make it believable in a novel? I put the references to how Abi reads lips early on in the story, and then by the end when the plot is heating up, I assumed that people would have understood how she ‘hears’ and regard her ability to lip-read as normal. What was interesting as a novelist was to become aware of Abigail’s visual clues – obvious things such as the fact she sees movement in the trees as riders approach, rather than hearing hoof beats. She feels vibrations through her feet as people come upstairs; she is very aware of shifts in light and shadow. These skills have become so automatic she hardly thinks of them, but what I definitely did not want to do was give her superhuman senses to ‘compensate’ for her missing hearing, but to keep it within the bounds of reality. Did it work? Well, like all novels it will probably work for some and not for others, depending on their own life-history and imagination.

But for me, I gained huge insights by talking to deaf people about their challenges. One or two things stuck – such as, one girl told me that as a deaf person, you do not know exactly how much noise you make, or how loud your voice is. This is a source of worry to Abi, who is trying to attract a particular boy, and would rather whisper and mumble than risk being too loud. These are the small insights that I tried to include, without them being too obtrusive. I am well aware that Abi’s experience will not be that of most deaf 

teenagers – yet neither will 17^th century life in England!  The way Abi reacts is tempered by the attitudes of the day to religion and disability. Some people would no doubt like my novel to focus on her disability more, but the plot is about Abi’s growth in confidence, her courage, her persistence through her insecurities, and her coming to terms with herself as an adult, rather than about her deafness. Her character and her story are what make her special, not her deafness, so I hope it will entertain deaf and hearing readers alike.

Here are just a few resources that I found incredibly useful; These are all designed for hearing people who might be reading this, rather than deaf or HoH people, who will probably roll their eyes at how basic they are!

Tara: Oh, I can totally relate!!!!! I cannot count the number of times someone told me to stop yelling at them...and I was so embarrassed! I can't wait to read your book, Ms. Swift. Thanks so much for sharing this with us!

Books: Memoirs

What's That Pig Outdoors? A Memoir of Deafness – Henry Kisor

The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa - Josh Swiller 

Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf - Oliver Sacks 

Books: Novels

Invisible - Cecily Anne Paterson

The Raging Quiet – Sheryl Jordan

Read My Lips – TJ Brown

Lots of YouTube videos  - try these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAm87fzIWxU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3_1MXcDwy0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xT3e0HySKY

And of course helpful organisations such as

British Deaf Association: BDA  www.bda.org.uk

Abigail Chaplin has always been unable to find a position as a maidservant like other girls, because she is deaf. So why do the rich Fanshawes of Markyate Manor seem so anxious to employ her? And where exactly does her mistress, Lady Katherine, ride out to at night?

SHADOW ON THE HIGHWAY is based on the life and legend of Lady Katherine Fanshawe, the highwaywoman, sometimes known as The Wicked Lady. A tale of adventure and budding romance set in the turbulent English Civil War, this is a novel to delight teens and adults alike.

Shadow on the Highway is FREE on Amazon for a few days!

Joint Review: What Is Visible by Kimberly Elkins

As we both acquired this book and had a strong interest in its subject: Laura Bridgman, the first blind and deaf woman in the United States to be educated , we decided to do a joint review. The novel is told in varying POVs, Laura's, Sarah's, Julia's, and also through letters amongst them and the doctor and others.

Tara: First of all, Shomeret, I must say, while I knew in advance from the blurb that it would be alternating POVs, the letters do not work for me. At times they make no sense or I don't much see their purpose, or they bring up issues I couldn't care less about, such as the doctor and Charles Sumner's possible romance. I fail to see what things like "I can't wait to touch your face" between the two of them have to do with the story itself, let alone Laura.

How do you feel about the execution of the alternating POVs?

Shomeret: I feel that the alternating POVs are meant to show us the historical context that Laura was living in. I prefer historical fiction that gives us a larger picture and expands our knowledge of the period as a whole.  We are told that Laura was well known, but without the other perspectives we wouldn't know exactly who was aware of her and what impact they had on her life.  I think that it was the famous people of the era being concerned about Laura's welfare that allowed her to survive as long as she did. Julia, the doctor's wife, was also very famous during the period.  If we only had Laura's viewpoint, we wouldn't know that.  I felt that the doctor treated his wife very similarly to the way he treated Laura and the blind girls in his institution.  This showed me that his patronizing and controlling attitude wasn't just directed at his female patients, but at all women.  I think that his wife, Julia Ward Howe, came to the same conclusion eventually.  I have to say that before I read this book I knew who wrote "Battle Hymn of the Republic", but I couldn't have told you the name of her husband.  He's the one who is now almost totally unknown.So for me this book also provides historical context for Julia Ward Howe. I should also note that Charles Sumner was a very important political figure which is why his opinions about Laura and Julia carried more weight and credibility for the doctor.  He thought that only people of power, wealth and influence counted.  Of course, he isn't the only one who ever thought that way.  It's a very common attitude for people to have. This is why more people who read historical fiction want to read about Kings and Queens than people like Laura Bridgman even if they live in democratic countries where people are expected to be treated as equals.  I thought it was interesting that Charles showed himself in letters to be touch oriented like Laura.  Dr. Howe, like many Victorians, must have been very ambivalent about touch.  His relationships exhibited this ambivalence, and I thought they explained why Laura both fascinated and repelled him. I feel that it's rather wonderful that  Elkins  couldn't resist the irony of showing us  prominent abolitionists like Dr. Howe, Julia and Charles who were very concerned about the liberty of African Americans, but had no concern at all for the liberty of the blind and deaf. The doctor wanted to use Laura to promote the abolitionist cause while totally restricting her life.  I appreciated this aspect of the novel because it displays their hypocrisy.

Laura Bridgman, from wiki commons

Tara: Excellent point about Howe patronizing women in general. I have to agree. I'm disappointed that Laura is already hand-writing and quite educated when the book starts. I was hoping to see some of what occurred during her education process. I imagine it was not easy!

Shomeret:  Yes, we see in the accounts that Annie Sullivan wrote about Helen Keller's education that it wasn't easy.  I'm not sure why Elkins didn't start her story earlier.  Maybe she thought she would be duplicating the story of Helen Keller's childhood. 

Tara: True, but Anne Sullivan and Howe probably had varying methods. And Helen Keller was like a rabid animal before Sullivan came on the scene. Laura had the benefit of having once spoken, heard, smelled, seen...so I imagine the training was different too.

I noticed some reviewers had trouble with Laura as a character, namely in the beginning. Strangely enough, I did not see a bratty girl. Rather, I saw a young girl frustrated with living in darkness and silence. She simply wants people to pay attention to her. She can't just say, "Hey, guess what?" She has to get their attention, grab their hands to communicate with them, find them at times. When I think of sitting there waiting for people to notice me and give me their hands in order for me to ask questions or find out what's going on around me, I completely "get" what others may consider brattiness. I also felt she was very lonely, thus the crawling into others' beds at night. And I grew even sadder when others spoke about her as if she wasn't even in the room. I know what that feels like very well. My hairstylist and others just gossip over my head once a month. It's irritating, but at least I know they are chatting. Laura didn't even have that.

And I realize I'm going on and on here, but despite my dislike of this book's execution, I feel a connection with Laura and feel frustration on her behalf. This particular passage really resonated with me:

She'd mostly broken her student of playing with her food by constantly reminding her of her age--seventeen!--but this often led to a discussion of what other girls her age were up to: walking out with a beaux, going to balls in carriages, and Laura usually ended up weeping at the bleakness of her own life. It was on thing to admonish her to act like an adult, and then another to refuse her any adult activities.

That really sums up Laura's situation and life. :(

How did you feel about Laura? About how she was treated? Did anything in particular resonate or touch a chord with you?

Shomeret:  I think that Laura really was pretty self-absorbed for a good part of her life.  On the other hand, if you don't have four of the five senses, it's very hard to perceive other people as real.  You can fall into solipsism very easily.  Solipsism is the belief that only you exist.  Laura only had touch. When touch was forbidden to her as not ladylike she was completely cut off from the world. Yet her universe eventually expanded beyond herself despite the doctor's efforts to isolate her.

Tara: I imagine it would be hard to focus on things/people you can never smell, hear, see... I don't suppose it helps that so many people worshipped her.

I felt like the doctor was attempting to brainwash Laura in regards to religion. He was also a control freak. I can't say I cared for him, not the way he cast her aside for Julia so quickly. Do you feel the doctor was overly familiar with his student, in housing her, holding her, caring for her like a father, in light of the fact he so quickly set her aside and I would think, broke her heart?

Shomeret:  I consider Dr. Howe an evil man who didn't care about his patients. His only interest in Laura was that she promoted him and his theories.  He cast her aside when she became independent minded and stopped doing what he expected of her.  She was like a carnival "freak" who was no longer favored by management and therefore wasn't receiving top billing.

Julia Ward Howe, Wiki Commons

 Laura's religious evolution was very interesting to me.  She seemed to have Catholic leanings at one point which would have been very shocking to the Protestants who surrounded her.  The Protestant majority tended to be extremely anti-Catholic at the time, and any Catholic tendencies would have been widely condemned.  Regardless of how she defined herself spiritually, I feel that Laura was a mystic.  One of my favorite quotes from this book was Laura's comment "God is a strange and mysterious master, and I am no doubt a strange and mysterious servant."

Tara: Another quibble I have, though minor compared to the ones I mention above: If they are finger-spelling, how do the people around them know what they are saying? Is someone translating? The book doesn't say.

Such as this scene here:

"Dinner," Sarah rapped into Laura's palm and the girl shook her head vehemently. "Doctor wants you to eat," she tried again.

"Doctor eat with me?"

"No, but I will."

Laura smoothed the front of her dress, considering. "Feed me?"

Sarah cast a despairing glance at Jeannette, who laughed. (How did Jeannette know what Laura said? All the stuff in quotation marks is being finger-spelled between Sarah and Laura.) I think, perhaps, also, that quotation marks was the wrong way to go with the finger-spelled parts.

Shomeret:  It's hard to handle dialogue that isn't spoken, but I agree that quotes wasn't a good solution.  This caused Elkins to deceive herself into thinking of Laura as having an oral conversation that could be heard when she actually wasn't.  That's why she made errors like the scene you mention here. Perhaps the finger spelled dialogue should have been italicized. Deaf people, CODA's (Children of Deaf Adults), sign interpreters and other people who deal with deaf communication on a daily basis always think about this type of communication and its implications.  The non-deaf who have no contact with deaf people aren't conscious of  the issues involved.  An author in this category has a special burden of responsibility when they write about the deaf.  They need to do their research and take care to portray their communication realistically.    

Tara: I'm so glad you "get" it. You are right. The hearing world may not be so bothered by that, but I sure am. LOL Speaking of Sarah, while I did not care for the doctor's or Julia's stories, Sarah's took a surprising twist that both appalled and entertained me. Any deep thoughts on her?

Shomeret:  I felt that Sarah inappropriately idolized Laura.  This fed Laura's ego and encouraged her to be inconsiderate.   On the other hand,  she was the only one who respected Laura at all.  Yet there needed to be someone in Laura's life who cared about her, but also had a healthy ego of  her own.  Laura saw Sarah as an extension of herself who existed only to meet her needs. Sarah was unable to show her that she was a separate person because she had boundary problems herself.  Sarah didn't know how to exist on her own.  That's how I interpret what happened to her. 

Tara:  As for Laura's romance, I am wondering why the author felt it necessary to add. Why does nearly every famous woman who existed and never married made into a lesbian? Why cannot a woman's sexuality be left alone?

Sarah and Laura, Wiki Commons

Shomeret:  I don't think Laura was being portrayed as a lesbian.  Consider that Laura was essentially imprisoned in an institution for blind girls.   Aside from Dr. Howe and rare visitors, Laura had no contact with men.  She evidently wanted to marry and have children, but she wasn't allowed the opportunity to do so. The other factor that needs to be considered in discussing Laura's sexuality, is that her only sense was touch.  This means that her sense of touch was extremely developed.  The need to touch and be touched is a very important component of sexuality, and Laura's need for touch was exponentially much greater than it would be for people who possess all five senses.  So I don't think that it could be possible that Laura would have been asexual.  I don't think she saw it as being sexual, nor do I think that she really had a sexual preference or a sexual identity.  These concepts weren't available to her.   In the Victorian era, a woman's sex education would usually have been limited to a talk with her mother before she got married.  Since Dr. Howe didn't intend for Laura to get married, he didn't think she needed to know about sex.  A great deal of his control was centered on trying to keep his patients asexual based on the beliefs that Victorians had at the time.  He probably thought that reproduction was the only reason for sex.  He also seemed to think that all his patients were genetically inferior and shouldn't be allowed to reproduce.   Phrenology was one of the means that he used to express these prejudices.  Laura perceived that he interpreted phrenology in a way that confirmed his prejudices.  This means that phrenology was not a science, but a religion which was allied with the ideology of eugenicism that categorized people as having superior genes or inferior ones.  Since he thought Laura was genetically inferior,  he attempted to make Laura into a "female eunuch" to borrow a phrase from Germaine Greer, but was unsuccessful.  It seems to me that portraying Laura as asexual given how touch oriented she was, wouldn't have been believable.

I thought that this novel was a flawed, but interesting attempt to portray someone who only had one sense.  I also felt that this book showed me aspects of 19th century America that I knew, but I hadn't given much thought to them.

Tara: That's true. I'm sure at that point she welcomed sexual touch, regardless of where it came from. She didn't seem to have much sense of what was "acceptable" and what was "not acceptable." She even thought she could marry her brother there for a while. Good point you made. I guess the twist just didn't do much for me or took me too aback.

Tara received this via Goodreads Firstreads. Shomeret acquired it via her library.

Tara's Rating:

Shomeret's Rating: