From Publishers Weekly
This pedestrian memoir is a confessional narrative in the strictest sense. Buck, a deaf man with a graduate degree in computer science, confesses that from 1985 to 1996, he earned money as a peddler, working either part-time or full-time, in airports, restaurants and malls. Born in 1960 to hearing parents, Buck was doing well in his first year at Gallaudet University when a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the chest down. He eventually returned to Gallaudet in a wheelchair and completed his undergraduate studiesAbut, insecure and troubled, he soon found that he could make good money by distributing sign language cards to pedestrians and requesting a donation. In clear prose, Buck provides a brief history of deaf peddlers (who are, to this day, ostracized by most other deaf people), and tells his own storyAthe years when peddling was just a lucrative sideline (while he was employed as a neural network engineer at Wright Patterson Air Force base); his stint as a full-time peddler at Chicago's O'Hare Airport; his frequent run-ins with the police. He also vividly describes the rings of illegal immigrants, some deaf, who are smuggled into the U.S. and forced to peddle for the profit of their exploiters. But this account seems aimed at condemning his former life and the deaf men and women who still peddle. Wracked by shame about his own past, the reformed peddler boasts of his strong work ethic and argues against charity and social security programs for deaf people. B&w illustrations. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The thought of an educated deaf individual becoming a peddler has always been a sad image in the minds of educators and informed members of the deaf community. Buck, deaf from birth and wheelchair bound since college, tells about his life, not necessarily in chronological order but in the context of the history of the deaf peddler. His courage during physical rehabilitation from a motorcycle accident matches his gutsy approach to learning how to peddle and how to handle competition in airports. Moreover, Buck's ideas about designing deaf communication brochures and about working airport locations are quite creative. Because peddling was more lucrative than his paying jobs and because he needed extra cash while going to graduate school, Buck continued this practice until he decided that his self-esteem was more important than money. His final line on the financing of his book tells it all: "Money given under the false notion that deaf people can't, financed a book telling everyone yes, they can." Nancy McCray
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