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The novel is filled with sounds and their absence, with an understanding of and insistence on the power of language, and with the necessity of telling and re-telling our stories. When Grania is a little girl at home, she sits with her grandmother, who teaches her: "Grania is intimately aware of Mamo's lips--soft and careful but never slowed. She studies the word as it falls. She says 'C' and shore, over and over again... This is how it sounds." After she and Jim are married and he is sent to war, he writes: "At times the ground shudders beneath our boots. The air vibrates. Sometimes there is a whistling noise before an explosion. And then, all is silent." When Grania's brother-in-law, her childhood friend, Kenan, returns from war seriously injured, he will not utter a sound. Grania approaches him carefully, starting with a word from their childhood--"poom"--and moves through "the drills she thought she'd forgotten... Kenan made sounds. In three weeks he was rhyming nonsense syllables."
A deaf woman teaching a hearing man to make sounds again is only one of the wonders in this book. Because Itani's command of her material is complete, the story is saved from being another classic wartime romance--a sad tale of lovers separated. It is a testament to the belief that language is stronger than separation, fear, illness, trauma and even death. Itani convinces us that it is what connects us, what makes us human. --Valerie Ryan
Brazil (Portuguese) - Editora Objetiva
Canada (English) - HarperCollins
Catalonia (Catalan) - Columna Edicions
France (French) - Editions JC Lattes
Germany (German) - Berlin Verlag
Greece (Greek) - Livani Publishing Organization
Holland (Dutch) - Arena
Italy (Italian) - Frassinelli/Sperling & Kupfer Editori
Japan (Japanese) - Shincho Sha
Portugal (Portuguese) - Dom Quixote
Spain (Spanish) - Ediciones Maeva
UK (English) - Hodder & Stoughton
US (English) - Grove/Atlantic
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Book Description Softcover. Condition: new. Set during 1915-19 in Canada, United States, England, Belgium and France, this is the story of a young woman in her 20s, Grania O Neill (pronounced GRAW-NEE-YA, an Irish name meaning Love), profoundly deaf from the age of 5 as a result of scarlet fever. She marries Jim Lloyd, a hearing man who, 2 weeks after their marriage, leaves home in Ontario to serve his King and country and do his bit for Mother England. Jim tries in every possible way to understand his wifes experience of deafness, and together they explore their love through the silence in which she lives.Jim is trained as a stretcher-bearer in one of the large camps on the southeast coast of England. He serves in Belgium and France with Number 9 Canadian Field Ambulance. His war experiences, friendships, and care of the dying and wounded during this brutal war of attrition, are moving, intimately detailed and carefully researched to show the realities of the life of a stretcher bearer serving in the front lines.On the home front, Granias childhood in a small town on the edge of Lake Ontario, where her father owns a hotel; and as a residential student at The Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in a small Ontario city. A bright child, she has to learn real sign language (which replaces the private language she and her sister had, as small children, invented). She also learns, by necessity, extreme self-discipline and control over her emotions, which enables her to survive the trauma of leaving home and the facts of institutional life with 300 other deaf children around her. No visits home are permitted during the school year.Granias Mother, guilt-ridden and never accepting of Granias deafness, tries to make Grania hear. She tries for cures by miracle, and by taking her to Rochester, New York, in hopes of finding specialized medical treatment.Granias early experiences inside her own silence and within a family that tries to overprotectdespite her gradually developing independence and strengthslater illuminate the complexity of her adult relationships: with her closest deaf friend, Fry; with her older sister Tresswho was once her lifeline; with her Irish Grandmother, Mamo (the most important person in her life at home and the one who teaches her to read and to speak, and whose love twicein separate wayssaves Granias life); with her 2 brothers; and with her parents.After Jim departs for the war, both Grania and her sister move back to their parents home and hotel, where everyone in the family helps out with the hotel business.The tension in the book is held through the juxtaposition of two worlds: the world of war, violence and sound as shown through Jims horrific experiences at the Front (which include several major battles); and life for Grania inside the silence of her own world during the long years of waiting on the home frontwhere news is frequently bad as more and more local boys are reported killed in the war.Granias brother-in-law, Kenan, returns from the war in early 1918. He is wounded and mutilated and has stopped speaking. It is Grania who, with her extensive speech training recalled from residential schooldays, makes the breakthrough to Kenans speech. But this success creates resentment in her sister because Kenan is not able to confide or share his war experience with his young wife.Events move quickly toward resolution as first, Spanish flu sweeps through the town ( a deadly pandemic), followed by Armistice (Nov 1918) and eventual demobilization. A moving sequence of events with her sister releases tensions between Grania and Tress. The loss of Mamo finally leads to the release of emotions Grania has never permitted herself to express.In the spring of 1919, Jim returns home. He and Grania have survived, but their separate experiences have altered them forever. Jim has been part of events that the mind will gorge upon in horror forever. He has lost his closest friend from the war, a man who has been a brother to. Seller Inventory # DADAX080214165X
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Set during 1915-19 in Canada, United States, England, Belgium and France, this is the story of a young woman in her 20's, Grania O' Neill (pronounced GRAW-NEE-YA, an Irish name meaning "Love"), profoundly deaf from the age of 5 as a result of scarlet fever. She marries Jim Lloyd, a hearing man who, 2 weeks after their marriage, leaves home in Ontario to serve his King and country and "do his bit for Mother England." Jim tries in every possible way to understand his wife's experience of deafness, and together they explore their love through the silence in which she lives. Jim is trained as a stretcher-bearer in one of the large camps on the southeast coast of England. He serves in Belgium and France with Number 9 Canadian Field Ambulance. His war experiences, friendships, and care of the dying and wounded during this brutal war of attrition, are moving, intimately detailed and carefully researched to show the realities of the life of a stretcher bearer serving in the front lines. On the home front, Grania's childhood in a small town on the edge of Lake Ontario, where her father owns a hotel; and as a residential student at "The Institution for the Deaf and Dumb" in a small Ontario city. A bright child, she has to learn "real" sign language (which replaces the private language she and her sister had, as small children, invented). She also learns, by necessity, extreme self-discipline and control over her emotions, which enables her to survive the trauma of leaving home and the facts of institutional life with 300 other deaf children around her. No visits home are permitted during the school year. Grania's Mother, guilt-ridden and never accepting of Grania's deafness, tries to make Grania hear. She tries for cures by miracle, and by taking her to Rochester, New York, in hopes of finding specialized medical treatment. Grania's early experiences inside her own silence and within a family that tries to overprotect--despite her gradually developing independence and strengths--later illuminate the complexity of her adult relationships: with her closest deaf friend, Fry; with her older sister Tress--who was once her lifeline; with her Irish Grandmother, "Mamo" (the most important person in her life at home and the one who teaches her to read and to speak, and whose love twice--in separate ways--saves Grania's life); with her 2 brothers; and with her parents. After Jim departs for the war, both Grania and her sister move back to their parents' home and hotel, where everyone in the family helps out with the hotel business. The tension in the book is held through the juxtaposition of two worlds: the world of war, violence and sound as shown through Jim's horrific experiences at the Front (which include several major battles); and life for Grania inside the silence of her own world during the long years of waiting on the home front--where news is frequently bad as more and more local boys are reported killed in the war. Grania's brother-in-law, Kenan, returns from the war in early 1918. He is wounded and mutilated and has stopped speaking. It is Grania who, with her extensive speech training recalled from residential schooldays, makes the breakthrough to Kenan's speech. But this success creates resentment in her sister because Kenan is not able to confide or share his war experience with his young wife. Events move quickly toward resolution as first, Spanish flu sweeps through the town ( a deadly pandemic), followed by Armistice (Nov 1918) and eventual demobilization. A moving sequence of events with her sister releases tensions between Grania and Tress. The loss of Mamo finally leads to the release of emotions Grania has never permitted herself to express. In the spring of 1919, Jim returns home. He and Grania have survived, but their separate experiences have altered them Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780802141651
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_080214165X
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