Mother Tongue by Sara Nović
Summary: Sara Nović’s early years were filled with music, Bible study, and a strong desire to fit in. But when she failed her school’s mandated hearing test, her worldview was thrown into chaos. Desperate not to be marked as different, she told no one, staying in the hearing world for as long as she could by brute force. Eventually unable to ignore the fact that she was deaf, Nović sought out other deaf people and was welcomed into a tight knit community rooted in the beauty and joy of American Sign Language. Nović realized that rather than maintaining the facade of her old life or trying to straddle two worlds, she would need to cultivate a life in the space between. Now the mother of two young sons – one, biological and hearing, the other, adopted and deaf-Nović reflects on her life both before and after parenthood. She’s raising her children within the deaf world, offering them things her younger self needed, all the while knowing that as her children grow, their own paths will branch off from hers in ways she cannot fully predict or plan for. 

I adored Sara Nović’s novel, True Biz, which welcomed readers into the world of a residential school for the deaf via deeply developed characters and lessons about American Sign Language and Deaf Culture cleverly entwined into the plot. And I have long followed Nović’s articles and advocacy work, where she has delivered clear-eyed, nuanced takes on everything from cochlear implants to the value of art. So I couldn’t wait to read her new memoir, Mother Tongue. As always, Nović delivers. This deeply felt book takes us along on her journey from the hearing world to the Deaf world (or deaf world, as she writes it, for reasons she explains in the book). Along the way, deep research on topics such as hearing aids and cochlear implants, international adoption, language deprivation, and the reproductive rights of marginalized people intertwines with personal stories of her experiences with the church, the medical community, the birth of her hearing son, and the adoption of her deaf son. As she reckons with the forces that have shaped her as a person and a writer, Nović will open the reader’s eyes to consider how those forces shape us all.

MOTHER TONGUE is out now.

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