Helpful Score: 3
Frances Itani, a Canadian writer, uses sparse visual scenes replaced with slowly- and well-developed relationships within a community of characters. You will often feel as if you lived in one of the houses just off Main Street, in Deseronto, Canada.
While reading the story, you easily fall into Grania's world of silence and feel her frustration, loneliness, and confusion as she struggles to learn adequate skills to communicate in a world dominated by spoken language.
The parallel story begins with Grania living and working at the hotel her parents own while Jim, her newlywed husband, is serving as a stretcher bearer during the long months at war. Their love for each other is conveyed through their thoughts and letters -- separated by time, space, and sound. The graphic, horrific visualization about the brutalities of WWI is difficult, described as it likely was -- a horrendous, relentless war almost a century ago.
Books like Cold Mountain and My Sister's Keeper brought tears by the turn of the last page. Deafening is a powerful, sensitive story of the same caliber. This is a book I'd recommend for book club discussion.
Itani's experience and thorough research makes the events and places in this story very believable. The town where Grania was sent to school is Itani's home town. Her grandmother was deaf and raised 11 children. Itani was named to the Order of Canada (Feb. 2007). Deafening won the Commonwealth Book Award in 2003.
While reading the story, you easily fall into Grania's world of silence and feel her frustration, loneliness, and confusion as she struggles to learn adequate skills to communicate in a world dominated by spoken language.
The parallel story begins with Grania living and working at the hotel her parents own while Jim, her newlywed husband, is serving as a stretcher bearer during the long months at war. Their love for each other is conveyed through their thoughts and letters -- separated by time, space, and sound. The graphic, horrific visualization about the brutalities of WWI is difficult, described as it likely was -- a horrendous, relentless war almost a century ago.
Books like Cold Mountain and My Sister's Keeper brought tears by the turn of the last page. Deafening is a powerful, sensitive story of the same caliber. This is a book I'd recommend for book club discussion.
Itani's experience and thorough research makes the events and places in this story very believable. The town where Grania was sent to school is Itani's home town. Her grandmother was deaf and raised 11 children. Itani was named to the Order of Canada (Feb. 2007). Deafening won the Commonwealth Book Award in 2003.
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