Review by Sharon Brunner
Raymond Luczak has captured the essence of the Deaf experience with all of its complications in his book The Language of Home: Stories, which took approximately 40 years to write. The time the stories took place varied from the 1970s to perhaps present time and it took place in various locations in the United States such as Marquette, Michigan, an Upper Peninsula (U.P) city, and Seattle, Washington. The main characters in the book were mostly Deaf people and people who were acquainted with the hearing challenged. The word Deaf was capitalized because they were referred to as a social and linguistic group. Luczak lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. However, Luczak edited the poetry book Yooper Poetry: on experiencing Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and announced on the back of this book he is a proud Yooper. Native. In order to submit poetry to be published in this book a requirement was you must be a Yooper (an inhabitant in the UP. or someone who used to live in the northern paradise). Back to this book, Luczak’s collection of thirty short stories provides a panoramic view of Deaf lives.
One of the themes portrayed throughout this book involved when the Deaf needed to be seen, respected and accepted, not to be treated like an outcast. Another theme that surfaced was the ability to connect with others through communication. Luczak described a situation in which only the mother of a girl made the attempt to learn ASL (American Sign Language) while her father did not want to take the time to enhance his capabilities concerning communicating with her. Her mother ended up passing away and so she was left in the care of her father. The only time her father noticed her was when she picked up his skill of carving stone. Many of the characters decided not to talk at all because they became frustrated and hurt because the hearing people did not respect them. Another child was happy to be sent to the school for the Deaf because she could communicate with her peers. It gave her a sense of belonging.
I was immediately reminded of another of Luczak’s books Animals Out-There W-i-l-d. The book was written in English and ASL Gloss. I must be honest as a hearing person, I had difficulty reading the ASL gloss sometimes. I often read it twice to extract the meaning of the narrative. I believe it would take a suburb linguistic ability to write in that manner. Luczak wrote a couple of chapters for this book in ASL gloss. Children of a Lesser God (1986) was the movie that came to mind when I read this book. A teacher meets a custodian at the school for the Deaf he worked at and a romance slowly developed. Luczak offered a variety of relationships between consenting adults and some people who did not consent to the relationship. He introduced homophobia by a parent and sexual assault by another parent. Deaf people and hearing people desire to seek committed relationships and some were just interested in sexual gratification.
This book related to me in several ways, but the most significant was I had a cousin who was Deaf. He went to a school for Deaf children throughout his childhood. He learned ASL and how to read other people’s lips when they were talking. I knew people who worked with him when he was an adult and they liked him. It was difficult to tell he was Deaf due to his keen ability to read lips. I liked many things about this book from Luczak’s efforts to portray the frustration of many Deaf and hearing people when they try to communicate with one another to a mother second guessing her attempt at raising her Deaf son. Many parents, me included, have questioned our parenting abilities. I remember not understanding specific circumstances as a child and cannot imagine not being able to hear what was going on. Our hearing and sight cannot be taken for granted. I learned a lot about the Deaf when I read this book and why they talk differently from hearing people. Hearing educators tried to ban ASL and children often received harsh treatment if they tried to sign. My heart goes out to those children. This book was thought provoking.
I recommend The Language of Home: Stories for its honest portrayal of a variety of Deaf experiences, because of its rendition of their struggle through an unfriendly world, its description of the effort of hearing people to reach out to the Deaf, and its reference to what it is like from a Deaf person’s perspective when they face a variety of circumstances, good and bad. Luczak took the reader into the minds of the Deaf and hearing people. That poor little girl who sought to find out who was crying out loudly and then she felt she caused her father to be taken away by the police. The Deaf woman who felt unattractive because of her pear shape and she finally found someone to accept her for who she was. An interpreter tried to convince a Deaf man that she only wanted to communicate with him but he did not trust her. A woman had trouble listening to her Deaf friend talk, her high pitch voice grated on her ears. The feelings portrayed in this book were so raw and appeared so authentic. Luczak’s short story narratives resonated with a rare real-life representation of Deaf characters.
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner
Book Title: The Language of Home: Stories
Author: Raymond Luczak
