Deafening [Paperback]

Frances Itani (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2, 2004

Born on the shores of Lake Ontario, Grania O'Neill suffers a childhood illness that destroys her hearing. Grania's life without sound is also a life bounded by a powerful family love that tries to protect her from suffering. But when it becomes clear that Grania can no longer thrive among the hearing, her family sends her to the Ontario School for the Deaf. There, protected from the often unforgiving world outside, she learns sign language and speech. And there she meets Jim Lloyd, a hearing man, and the two, in wonderment, begin to create a new emotional vocabulary that encompasses both sound and silence. But a war is raging on the other side of the world. Only two weeks after their wedding, Jim must leave home to serve as a stretcher-bearer on the blood-soaked battlefields of Flanders. During this long and brutal war of attrition, Jim and Grania are pulled to the centre of cataclysmic events that will alter civilisation forever.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Deafening, Canadian writer Frances Itani's American debut novel, she tells two parallel stories: a man's story of war and a woman's story of waiting for him and of what it is to be deaf. Grania O'Neill is left with no hearing after having scarlet fever when she is five. She is taught at home until she is nine and then sent to the Ontario Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, where lifelong friendships are forged, her career as a nurse is chosen, and she meets Jim Lloyd, a hearing man, with whom she falls in love.

The novel is filled with sounds and their absence, with an understanding of and insistence on the power of language, and with the necessity of telling and re-telling our stories. When Grania is a little girl at home, she sits with her grandmother, who teaches her: "Grania is intimately aware of Mamo's lips--soft and careful but never slowed. She studies the word as it falls. She says 'C' and shore, over and over again… This is how it sounds." After she and Jim are married and he is sent to war, he writes: "At times the ground shudders beneath our boots. The air vibrates. Sometimes there is a whistling noise before an explosion. And then, all is silent." When Grania's brother-in-law, her childhood friend, Kenan, returns from war seriously injured, he will not utter a sound. Grania approaches him carefully, starting with a word from their childhood--"poom"--and moves through "the drills she thought she'd forgotten… Kenan made sounds. In three weeks he was rhyming nonsense syllables."

A deaf woman teaching a hearing man to make sounds again is only one of the wonders in this book. Because Itani's command of her material is complete, the story is saved from being another classic wartime romance--a sad tale of lovers separated. It is a testament to the belief that language is stronger than separation, fear, illness, trauma and even death. Itani convinces us that it is what connects us, what makes us human. --Valerie Ryan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

War and deafness are the twin themes of this psychologically rich, impeccably crafted debut novel set during WWI. Born in the late 19th century, Grania O'Neill comes from solid middle-class stock, her father a hotel owner in Deseronto, Ontario, her mother a God-fearing daughter of an Irish immigrant. When Grania is five, she loses her hearing to scarlet fever. When she is nine, she is sent to the Ontario Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in Belleville and given an education not only in lipreading, signing and speaking but also in emotional self-sufficiency. After graduating, she works as a nurse in the Belleville hospital, where she meets and falls in love with Jim Lloyd. They marry, but Jim is bound for the war as a stretcher bearer. His war is hell on earth: lurid wounds; stinks; sudden, endless slaughter redeemed only by comradeship. Itani's remarkably vivid, unflinching descriptions of his ordeal tend to overshadow Grania's musings on the home front, but Grania's story comes to the fore again when her brother-in-law and childhood friend, Kenan, comes back to Deseronto from the trenches in Europe with a dead arm and a half-smashed face, refusing to speak. Grania, who was educated to configure sounds she couldn't hear into words that "the hearing" could understand, brings Kenan back to life by teaching him sounds again, and then by making portraits of the people in the town whom she, Kenan and her sister Tress know in common. As she talks to Kenan, she reinvigorates him with a sense that his life, having had such a rich past, must have a future, too. This subplot eloquently expresses Itani's evident, pervasive faith in the unexpected power of story to not only represent life but to enact itself within lives. Her wonderfully felt novel is a timely reminder of war's cost, told from an unexpected perspective.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Sceptre; First Edition edition (August 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340828935
• ISBN-13: 978-0340828939
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,598,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tour-de-force., August 27, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Deafening: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is my surprise book of the year. It was a gift, and I didn't quite know what to expect, but it's turned into a real winner.
Spanning the years from 1902 till the end of WWI, we follow the life of Grania, a child/woman who became deaf following scarlet fever. From a loving middle-class family, she went to a boarding school for hundreds and hundreds of deaf children, grew into a self-sufficient young woman, became a nurse, and married a hearing man, Jim. He went off to war, as did her childhood friend and brother-in-law, Kenan. Improbably for that Great War, both men returned - but in very different conditions.
Divided into several parts, the early chapters are Grania's education, learning to live as a deaf person in the world of the hearing. The next part is Jim's story of his war experience.
Then comes Grania's ultimately successful efforts to return the power of speech to her mute and traumatized childhood friend. And finally the resolution of all the stories.
This book grows on you. One of the boldest risks author Itani took was to try (successfully) to convey Grania's silent world to readers, and to imitate the understanding of sign language as well as lip reading for those of us unfamiliar with the Deaf World.
It's a stunning and powerful book, showing the power of Story to convey love, union, and understanding - and ultimately, joy.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Deafening"... A masterpiece!, August 16, 2005

By 

R. Nicholson - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Deafening: A Novel (Hardcover)

A great novel!

This book, by Francis Itani, revolves around the world of a girl/woman who as acquired deafness through childhood illness. The setting is initially in Ontario, Canada in the late 1800's and then eventually alternating between Ontario and the European theater of World War I.

I must admit I had some difficultly getting into this work, but I persevered and I'm glad I did, because this book is truly a magnificent read. Once committed, I could barely stand to put the book down.

As with all great books, what makes this book special, is the quality of the writing. The prose just seemed to flow effortlessly off the pages as time melted away. You learn things about deafness, quietness and darkness that you never really noticed before; you begin to appreciate what people without hearing have to endure to get through an hour, a day or a lifetime. There were a couple of occasions in this book where I was taken aback with a new revelation regarding deafness; where I would just let this book slip to my lap and think about what I'd just read.

There are parts in this book that are not for the faint of heart; some of the description of the trench warfare in France and Belgium are very graphic and disturbing. (but, most likely, accurate)

All in all, a story that is quietly beautiful and at the same time beautifully sad. Really, one of my favorite books. If I had to compare it to another book for quality, beauty and heartrending appeal, then I'd pick Charles Frazier's " Cold Mountain". Both books have that intangible timeless aura to them that separate them from their peers.
Highly recommended!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The darkness of deafness, November 17, 2004

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Deafening: A Novel (Hardcover)

The true test of an author is the ability to portray the mind of someone else. Recently, that ability has been stretched by writers who describe the "abnormal". The young, autistic Christopher in "Curious Incident" is the prime example. Frances Itani takes us into a different world, that of the deaf. It's a world of endless confusion. There are sounds, so easy to the hearing, but meaningless to the deaf. We think speech is the only important sound, but talk is hurried, undirected, and indistinct. Nature produces her own sounds which we use in speech, but for which there's no meaning to the deaf. Through Grania O'Brien's early life, Itani strives to introduce us to that world. Does she succeed?

Grania, who would have been "Grainne" in her ancestral Ireland, lives in small-town Ontario as the story opens. Deafened by scarlet fever [remember that?], she's coached by Mamo, her grandmother. Blessed with a quick eye for lip-reading, Grania is given a book with words displayed as rope. The rope, of course, becomes highly symbolic as the book progresses, but Grania begins to equate the shapes with meaning. Mamo strains to have the girl equate printed words with proper sounds. It's important that Grania "blend in" with the rest of the community. With her parents running a hotel, Grania's only other tie is with her sister Tress, with whom she develops a secret sign language.

All of Mamo's dedicated effort, nor trips to sacred shrines, can't force the pace. Grania is to leave home for a "Deaf School". Itani portrays the school as staffed with immensely caring ladies. No Dickens intrudes with harsh discipline or abuse, but the school draws children from across the Province. All the children remain in school until the summer holidays. Sign language is discouraged for those who can speak - dividing the children, some of whom are mute. Itani passes rapidly over Grania's progress in the school. The deaf girl, however, manages to shed some of her fear of the dark - a long-held terror.

Meeting a young aide in a hospital after leaving the school, Grania's life takes a new turn. The courtship is but a moment in the story - the wedding description not even related until much later in the book. Instead, the Kaiser rudely intrudes on their lives with the invasion of Belgium. Itani carefully rejects any political discussion in the narrative. King and Country [Britain, not Canada] are under threat and Jim must sign up. There's no family discussion, no question of how Irish immigrants in a far land should react - Jim crosses the Atlantic. There's a training stint, then Jim finds himself in the thick of battle. When time and circumstances permit, letters are scribbled in muddy trenches. Sometimes Grania's reach Jim, but delays in the exchanges make communication a flimsy thread.

Itani makes a splendid effort to depict the impact of the Great War. Confronted as we are today by daily images of conflict, Itani still manages to impart a special sense of horror at events. The years pass with Jim, a stretcher-bearer, braving the bombardments and fusillades of machine-gun fire, without being able to fight back. He carries wounded, tends their injuries, dodges fire and grows increasingly introspective. Never once, does he question the worth of the conflict. At home in Desoronto, Grania watches the causality lists, the statistics of insanity, lengthen while she worries. Soldier's wives need more visibility and Itani's effort is commendable.

This book cries out for a sequel. Grania's life hardly ends with the Armistice. With the end of the War, her deafness remains, the family is almost intact and a future must unroll. Itani has built a unique scenario with skillful prose. You will not find it easy to put this book down as you read. However, when you do finish, you will find the conclusion abrupt. Nothing is lost by that finale, but there might be much gained by going on. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]