"Beautifully written and deeply affecting . . . There is humor in
[Walker's] recollections but nothing lighthearted in accounts of
crude or condescending reactions to her father and mother from
indifferent people. Walker is candid in dealing with her own
frustrations and the burdens of life with the deaf."
-- Publishers Weekly"A deeply moving, often humorous, and beautiful
account of what it means to be the hearing child of profoundly deaf
parents . . . I have rarely read anything on the subject more
powerful or poignant than this extraordinary personal account by
Lou Ann Walker." -- Oliver Sacks"[Walker) describes in moving
detail the joys of growing up in a family where the simplest
communication was never taken for granted." -- Newsweek"In this
remarkable memoir, Walker recreates the pain and the joy of growing
up between two worlds: her parents' loving but silent home, and the
often confusing world she encountered outside those walls, and of
which she was inevitably a part." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer"So
profoundly other is the unhearing culture . . . that moving it into
a language we learn by hearing took both gifts and a nearly savage
determination." -- New York Times Book Review"Readers will come
away from this book informed, deeply moved and full of admiration
for Walker's marvelous parents." -- People"In the end, I wanted to
cheer Lou Ann Walker for having the gumption to write about a
matter so close to her heart, learning to love and accept her
parents as they are, not as she wished them to be. This is a gem of
a book." -- Glamour"I have never thought hard about this before,
but now I see that what deaf people do in sign language is even
more mysteriously and specifically, biologically human than speech
itself. My respect for the deaf, always high, is now still higher.
My awe for the human mind is out of sight." -- Lewis Thomas"I loved
A Loss for Words. [The] style is brisk and clear and, it seems to
me, never sentimental . . . The Lou Ann who emerges to find her own
voice and write this book is a character whom I admire as much as
any literary hero." -- Max Apple"This book is worth reading simply
for its celebration of the strength and perseverance of the human
spirit and for its account of a woman coming to terms with herself
and a family coming to terms with itself." -- American Annals of
the Deaf
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