SarahBess's Book Journey

I read Sara Novic's book True Biz a few years back and one of my favorite parts of it were the inserted chapters about the history of deaf culture. So when I saw that her memoir Mother Tongue was shortlisted for the Nonfiction National Book Award I was immediately intrigued.

I was not disappointed. Novic seamlessly weaves the history of the systemic injustice and language deprivation that deaf people have faced for centuries into her personal journey of accepting her own deafness and becoming a mother to her two children.

This is easily one of the most comprehensive memoirs I've read this year-- you follow the story starting at Novic's experience navigating education without accommodations, her experience as a deaf pregnant person and mother to a hearing child, and the process their family went through when adopting their deaf son from Thailand during the pandemic. Also touched on are the history of oralists trying to eradicate sign language and deaf culture, police violence against deaf people (and how that especially affects the intersection of Black and Deaf identities), the intersection of Deaf and queer cultures, and the deeply ableist standards that hearing parents and society hold deaf children to.

Listing it all out like that, it might sound overwhelming but the narrative is crafted so seamlessly you will not notice how much information you're learning until you sit back at the end, or at least that was my experience.

You might notice I also rated the audiobook 5 stars and I know it might seem strange to listen to a book that is largely about deafness but I do think that Lisa Flanagan's narration and the production (specifically the use of sound underlaying the signed dialogue) was exceptionally well done. I did a tandem read with audio and ebook and would recommend it if it's an option!