![]() The book loses its footing, however, when it turns from realism into melodrama with Mary’s kidnapping, including a maritime chase scene and cinematic drowning additionally, the narrative sometimes takes awkwardly didactic turns into sociohistorical explanation. ![]() LeZotte, herself Deaf, writes with assurance and clarity of a society where the ability to hear is a difference rather than an assumed norm, and the book also thoughtfully addresses the friction between the English-descended settlers and the indigenous Wampanoag, tacitly paralleling the dehumanization of the non-white residents with the dehumanization of the non-hearing. Her wariness proves prophetic: when he leaves for Boston, he secretly abducts Mary in order to have a deaf subject to study at his leisure, leaving her trapped in a city where she can’t speak the language and has no way of getting home. ![]() A young scholar visits the island to explore the possible causes of deafness there, and Mary is put off by his condescension and ignorance toward the deaf residents like her. It’s the early nineteenth century, and Mary lives in Martha’s Vineyard, where the prevalence of hereditary deafness means that locals are bilingual in English and sign. ![]()
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