Description
A revealing memoir of a family and a "wrenching journey into deafness from the standpoint of a mother, a wife, a daughter, a philosopher, and a Jew" (Ilan Stavans, author of On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language).
When her daughters were born deaf, Jennifer Rosner was stunned. Then she discovered a hidden history of deafness in her family, going back generations to the Jewish enclaves of Eastern Europe. Traveling back in time in her mind, she imagined her silent relatives, who showed surprising creativity in dealing with a world that preferred to ignore them.
Here, in a "gentle meditation on sound and silence, love and family" Rosner shares her journey into the modern world of deafness, and the controversial decisions she and her husband made about hearing aids, cochlear implants and sign language (Publishers Weekly).
Punctuated by memories of being unheard, Rosner's imaginative odyssey of dealing with her daughters' deafness is at its heart a story of whether she--a mother with perfect hearing--can ever truly hear her children.
Author: Jennifer Rosner
Publisher: Feminist Press
Published: 05/01/2010
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.30w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781558616622
ISBN10: 1558616624
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs
- Family & Relationships | Children with Special Needs
- Health & Fitness | Hearing & Speech
About the Author
Jennifer Rosner is the author of the memoir If A Tree Falls: A Family's Quest to Hear and Be Heard and the novel The Yellow Bird Sings. Her children's book, The Mitten String, is a Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable. Jennifer's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Massachusetts Review, The Forward, Good Housekeeping, and elsewhere. She lives in western Massachusetts with her family.