DeafeningAfter a summer of slick, steamy thrillers, Canadian writer Frances Itani's first novel is the literary equivalent of a cool autumn breeze. War and peace, language and silence, and separation and attachment are among the themes embraced in this American debut set in early 1900s Canada.
Scarlet fever robbed red-haired Grania O'Neill of her hearing at the tender age of 5. Her mother, Agnes, holds herself responsible for the illness, because she took Grania "the night she was so ill, through the open passageway in winter so that she could keep her close, watch over her, keep her on a cot in the hotel kitchen while she worked."
Grania thrives in school, and after graduation takes a job at the school hospital, where she meets a kind-eyed hearing man named Jim. Through Itani's vivid imagery and lyrical prose, we enter Grania's world as she communicates with her new companion, both by watching his mouth and putting her hands to his lips.
- Allison Block is a writer and editor in La Jolla, California.
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1 comment:
I think it would make a great movie. Interestingly, I found the book uplifting even though so many sad and tragic things took place.
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