But You Look So Normal : Lost and Found in a Hearing World
Overview
2024 IPPY Awards Gold Winner in Best First Book (Nonfiction/Personal) By age four, Claudia Marseille had hardly uttered a word. When her parents finally had her hearing tested and learned she had a severe hearing loss, they chose to mainstream her, hoping this would offer her the most "normal" childhood possible. With the help of a primitive hearing aid, Claudia worked hard to learn to hear, lipread, and speak even as she tried to hide her disability in order to fit in. As a result, she was often misunderstood, lonely, and isolated--fitting into neither the hearing world nor the Deaf culture. This memoir explores Claudia's relationships with her German refugee parents--a disturbed, psychoanalyst father obsessed over various harebrained projects and moneymaking schemes and a Jewish mother who had survived the Holocaust in Munich--and with her own identity. Claudia shares how she emerged from loneliness and social isolation, explored her Jewish identity, struggled to find a career compatible with hearing loss, and eventually opened herself to a life of creativity and love. But You Look So Normal is the inspiring story of a life affected but not defined by an invisible disability. It is a journey through family, loss, shame, identity, love, and healing as Claudia finally, joyfully, finds her place in the world.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781647426262
- ISBN-10: 164742626X
- Publisher: She Writes Press
- Publish Date: May 2024
- Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.8 pounds
- Page Count: 280
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