Important among the many books read and for quotations used, I acknowledge Alexander Graham Bell, The Mechanism of Speech (1916); E. B. Nitchie, Lessons in Lip-Reading (1905); M. I. Ives, Illustrated Phonics (1909); Martha Bruhn, The Müller-Walle Method of Lip-Reading for The Deaf (1915); and Sunday 1894, a children’s book published in London by Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. I acknowledge Clifton F. Carbin’s Deaf Heritage in Canada; J. Schuyler Long’s 1910 Manual of Signs; the Champlain Society’s Ontario and the First World War. Books about the Spanish flu by Richard Collier and Lynette Iezzoni were helpful, as were Whisky and Ice by C. W. Hunt, Kenneth Cameron’s History of No. 1 Canadian General Hospital Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919, Donald M. Wilson’s work on the Rathbun enterprises, and D. W. Griffith’s film Hearts of the World (1918). The children’s chant in Chapter 26 is a variation of “Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!,” an American Civil War song by G. F. Root (1820-1895). Jim’s chant, “Infirtaris…” dates from circa 1450; this 1842 version was collected by Iona and Peter Opie in The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1980). Every effort has been made to track original sources, but additional information about copyright is most welcome.
I acknowledge and thank The Canada Council for the Arts, Millennium Fund, and the former Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton for grants awarded during the writing of this book.
Loving thanks to my Mother and my Aunts and Uncles, the eleven hearing children of my late deaf Grandmother. Love to my husband, Ted, my daughter, Sam, and my son, Russell, for encouragement during the long, exhilarating and often sad journey; and to Aileen Jane Bramhall, soprano, for her expert explanations about voice and song. To Russell, thank you for sharing your extraordinary knowledge of music, sound and silence. To Sam, thanks for the careful proofreading of the final manuscript.
Last but not least, a huge thanks to Phyllis Bruce, my Canadian editor and publisher, who checked in along the way, who found and sent garage-sale books and First World War sheet music and who waited patiently for me to finish at my own pace. Thank you, Phyllis, for your steady belief in the book and for your editorial expertise.
About the Author
FRANCES ITANI is the author of five acclaimed short-story collections, including Leaning, Leaning Over Water and the forthcoming Poached Egg On Toast. She has also published three poetry collections and a children’s book, and has written features for CBC Radio. She has won many awards, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Canada and Caribbean region), the Tilden (CBC/Saturday Night) Literary Award for 1995 and 1996, Canadian Fiction Magazine’s Best Short Story Award, and the Ottawa-Carleton Book Award for Fiction. Deafening has been published around the world in many languages. Frances Itani lives in Ottawa.
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Praise for Deafening
“This is a superb novel, worthy of all the hype, and well worth the read.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
“As good a book as Crow Lake, Deafening provides more varied pleasures just as flawlessly…Itani creates as deeply affecting a central character in Grania O’Neill as Clarke’s Miss Mary-Mathilda or Gowdy’s Louise Kirk or Mary Lawson’s Kate Morrison—and that’s very good company indeed.”
—The Globe and Mail
“Itani’s beautiful sentences catch the eye immediately…[A] grand achievement.”
—The Edmonton Journal
“There’s not a single false gesture in Frances Itani’s Deafening…It’s a story of careful, measured emotion, bleached of all sentimentality…There are passages here so beautiful that we can’t help straining to hear more.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“Immerses us in both the world of the deaf and the world of WWI trench warfare…The result is an artistic triumph.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A moving and memorable first novel…Frances Itani is an artist who understands what to include and what to leave out, when to whisper and when to shout…Utterly absorbing.”
—Newsday
“Deafening is a tribute to Frances Itani’s storytelling skills, an affecting and evocative look at those who inhabited a soundless world during the early years of the last century.”
—Richard B. Wright
“This book is a meditation on silence and communication…In a world filled with sound, Grania’s story is a stirring reminder that human engagement occurs on various levels.”
—Literary Review (UK)
“[A] sensitive and powerful first novel…Like other gifted writers in the best tradition of once upon a time, Itani has the power not only to make us see and hear, but to believe.”
—The Hamilton Spectator
“There are scenes in Deafening which will never be forgotten. From the haunting effects of a childhood disease to the random horrors of war, the uncertainties that become our certainties have seldom been so well explored.”
—Alistair MacLeod
“Admirably understated, touching and restrained.”
—People
“Like [Pat] Barker, Canadian author Itani does not shy away from war’s unflattering profile at the same time that she eagerly exploits for her own literary purposes the raw power and complexity of life on the battlefield and on the home front…The Great War is quite simply an awesome presence in the novel…Itani has written a moving first novel that expresses in human terms the healing power of language and the unspeakable horrors of war.”
—The Boston Globe
“It’s more than a carefully crafted journey into the realm of the deaf—it’s a letter of love.”
—Chatelaine
“Studded with haunting perceptions of soundlessness.”
—Independent (UK)
“Itani’s [Deafening] unfolds with slow, deliberate eloquence and brilliantly described sights and sounds.”
—Booklist
“Deafening…is rich in every way. With exquisite crafting, Itani gives Grania a haunting subtle voice with which to tell her story…It is a story for all time.”
—The Sunday Oregonian
“A psychologically rich, deeply atmospheric and exquisitely told story.”
—Woman & Home (UK)
“[Deafening] is not only a beautifully crafted love story but also an exploration of the possibilities of language and the eloquence of silence. Itani has done her research well…An intelligent, absorbing read. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
“War and deafness are the twin themes in the psychologically rich, impeccably crafted debut novel set during WWI. [Itani’s] wonderfully felt first novel is a timely reminder of war’s cost, told from an unexpected perspective.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Itani’s lean, absorbing prose recreates the different kinds of cocoons enfolding her characters…This mesmerizing and quietly remarkable novel captures a young couple bound by a private language of fingers on lips and thoughts unvoiced and unutterable across the rift of the sea.”
—Time Out
“Several profound themes—including the curative power of language, the endurance of faith, and the vital role of storytelling in life, love, and war—are expertly enmeshed in this imaginatively crafted tale.”
—Elle
“Like Charles Frazier in his massively popular Cold Mountain, Itani possesses a graceful command of illuminating detail and epic sensibility…Itani may be attempting grand statements about the cacophonous death machinery of war, but what she really accomplishes is a simple story of a gentle soul struggling to accommodate to the hearing world.”
—The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Copyright
Deafening
© 2003 by Frances Itani.
© 2004 by Itani Writes Inc.
A Phyllis Bruce Book, published by
HarperPerennialCanada, an imprint
of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Front
leaf photograph © Hulton-Deutsch
Collection/CORBIS/MAGMA
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
First published in hardcover by Harper-FlamingoCanada and Phyllis Bruce Books, imprints of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2003. Large print edition 2003. This paperback edition 2004.
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* * *
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in
Publication
Itani, Frances, 1942-
Deafening : a novel / by Frances Itani.
“A Phyllis Bruce book”.
I. Title.
PS8567.T35D43 2004A C813’.54
C2004-902074-9
* * *
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EPub Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 978-1-443-40250-7
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