I am impressed with my local library’s book club reading list. These last three books have been just fantastic. True Biz by Sara Novic continues with the spectacular book selections by our book club leader. Not only did I think the novel worked on a craft level but it also got me thinking about the Deaf community and experiences members of that community might have. I believe it would be challenging to walk away from this book unchanged. Let’s talk about it.
Summary
We start the novel with a press conference about missing teenagers from a deaf school. The principal, February, is trying to dampen the optics of this incident when another child is reported missing. This explains the three phones February finds.
We go back in time and build forward to the present. We primarily follow February, Charlie, and Austin. February is navigating a strained marriage because her ex is teaching at the school and her wife has only recently learned about their past relationship. She is also battling the closure of her school and the loss of her mother.
Charlie is a deaf girl who has hearing parents. Her parents kept her from learning how to sign. Instead, they implanted her with a cochlear device that is malfunctioning and causing her tremendous issues. She has been impaired in school as a result of this device and after her parent’s divorce is enrolled in a Deaf school. She blossoms into a world she can finally function in, but simultaneously has attachments to her past school and a boy she is casually sleeping with. When her hearing device is shown to be recalled, Charlie can’t take the pressure coming from her mother to get another one and takes drastic action.
Austin is a Deaf boy who grew up in a community-famous family. His parents have a new baby and she can hear. This causes tension between Austin and his father (who is also hearing) because he is so excited to sing to Austin’s baby sister. When his baby sister’s hearing begins to diminish, Austin cannot believe that his father has pressured his mother into having her implanted with a cochlear device. To compound all this, when he learns that the only school he has known is closing the next school year Austin has a dramatic self-crisis.
What Worked
I could go on a…what’s the opposite of rant? Gushing? That sounds weird. But this novel is so good that I could talk about the stuff I liked for a long time. The characters feel fully developed. The plot has an organic quality that arises directly from the characters. But truly, the form is the most interesting aspect of this novel and here I will focus. I will limit myself to my three favorite things.
First, this gives an incredible glimpse at what living with deafness is like. It explores the complicated nature of new medicine that risks the extinction of Deaf culture. The injustice of preventing a deaf person from learning sign language because experts believe it could hinder English acquisition is so frustrating I can understand why Charlie and Austin would go to the lengths they do at the end of the novel. I don’t know what being Deaf is like, but I get a microscopic taste of what Deaf culture is and how it is constantly under attack. I love the raw exposure to this world and the issues it brings forth.
Second, the way that Sara Novic uses italic, column-clustered text to identify signed dialogue vs. unquoted indented text to identify spoken dialogue is brilliant. On the first page or two, I didn’t understand why the text was not quoted when the characters spoke, but after the signed dialogue I got it. I thought this was a great way to use the form to clarify different kinds of dialogue. I have new ideas about how this form could be used for multi-lingual conversations elsewhere.
Third, Sara’s inclusion of Wiki searches, reference material, and assignments related to the Charlie chapters informs the reader about Deaf culture, builds the setting, and establishes traits of Charlie’s character. She is likely the character hearing readers will latch onto, so these materials help teach the reader in a way that doesn’t feel overly intrusive.
What Didn’t Work
There are very few things that didn’t work. Much of this novel is so well done that finding something that doesn’t work is almost nitpicking on my part.
If I had to focus on something, the place I thought this book could have done better on a craft level was the ending. Not the climax, but the resolution (or denouement). Many parts of this ending are either not stated or heavily implied. We are left to infer that the kids return to local districts as the outcome of the school closure. The second implant into Charlie and the new implant into Austin’s sister probably won’t happen. February probably gets her issues with Mel worked out. But a definitive answer to all of those is not stated.
My frustration with True Biz‘s ending is similar to my frustration with the ending of Emily Danforth’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post. The ending comes across as rushed. In both novels, it feels like the author finished writing the climax, sat back in her chair, and said, “That works well enough.” Let’s be clear, I loved both True Biz and The Miseducation of Cameron Post. But in my view, a good resolution gives the reader a sense of direction and has fulfilled all the promises made in the novel. These two books provide an excellent direction for how a group of characters will move forward, but neither satisfactorily addresses all the promises made during the novel. This gives the novels an unfinished quality.
Conclusion
This book is beautiful and deeply satisfying. It has opened my eyes to the Deaf community and made me think about being more inclusive with my art. The book is a great example of how form can do great things for multi-lingual dialogue passages. Other than an ending that feels incomplete, I love this novel.
Voidy, you’re going hungry this week.
