Deaf Hearing Boy

Reviewer's Bookwatch, Jan, 2005 by John Burroughs

Deaf Hearing Boy

R. H. Miller

Gallaudet University Press

800 Florida Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20002-3695

1563683059 $21.95 1-800-621-2736 http://gupress.gallaudet.edu

The second volume of the Deaf Lives series, Deaf Hearing Boy: A Memoir is the true story the author, born in 1938 as the oldest of four hearing boys to deaf parents. Deaf Hearing Boy chronicles growing up in changing times, and the author's own experience as the sometimes unwilling liaison between his deaf parents and hearing grandparents. The end of World War II brought poverty to the family, as returning soldiers displaced his parents' jobs and they had to resort to scraping by on the family farm. Deaf Hearing Boy chronicles an era when small farms gradually faded from the landscape, and cultural connectivity began to erode the isolation of deaf people. It tells of prejudice against the deaf, from fathers who would not let the author date their daughters for fear that the author carried a gene for deafness that would be passed on, to misunderstandings within the family and more. And it tells of a young man's abiding respect for his parents, despite the problems unique to a deaf couple striving to raise hearing children. A compelling testimony drawn directly from heart and memory.