Would you repeat that (again)?
There’s not much in Queer Lit that’s inclusive of hearing loss. Talk about an absent character trait! So, for the moment I’m making do with the straight male protagonist in David Lodges’ deaf sentence, in which a recently retired linguistics professor, one Desmond Bates, runs smack into all of the frustrations (and isolation) of increasing hearing loss and more than a few critical misunderstandings when he can’t quite make out someone’s words. Spot on accurate on the travails of hearing loss and hilariously funny if you’ve ever found yourself in any of these situations. And even if you haven’t. Published in the USA by Penguin.
Hats off and thanks to Esther for turning me onto deaf sentence.
That said, Mean Little deaf Queer, Terry Galloway’s memoir about growing up in the fifties and sixties with fluctuating hearing loss, her theatre career, and, well, being a dyke in the midst of it all, is my go-to book for validating the anger that goes with hearing loss. It’s a fierce, wonderful, powerful book about growing up queer. It was published in 2009, and I’m eagerly awaiting a sequel. Beacon, $16.00.
“This is a damn fine piece of work which is unbelievably powerful….true and passionate and fearless and funny as hell when it is not heartbreaking. I expect this book to charm the hell out of great numbers of people, piss off a few, and give hope to many more.” –Dorothy Allison.
“Not your mother’s triumph-of-the-human-spirit memoir….. She’s also caustic, depraved, utterly disinhibited, and somehow sweetly bubbly, a beguiling raconteuse who periodically leaps onto the dinner table and stabs you with her fork.” –Alison Bechdel
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