The Hearing Test

by Eliza Barry Callahan

When the narrator of The Hearing Test, an artist in her late twenties, awakens one morning to a deep drone in her right ear, she is diagnosed with sudden deafness but is offered no explanation for its cause. As the specter of total deafness looms, she keeps a record of her year—a score of estrangement and enchantment, of luck and loneliness, of the chance occurrences to which she becomes attuned—while living alone in a New York City studio apartment with her dog.

Through a series of fleeting and often humorous encounters—with neighbors, an ex-lover, doctors, strangers, family members, faraway friends, and with the lives and works of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and philosophers—making meaning becomes a form of consolation and curiosity, a form of survival. 

At once a rumination on silence and a novel on seeing, The Hearing Test is a work of vitalizing intellect and playfulness that marks the arrival of a major new literary writer with a rare command of form, compression, and intent.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Novels, Disability, Adult, Audiobook

162 pages, Hardcover

First published March 5, 2024

Reviews

[Emily May · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars. I really wanted to love this book. I've read some great things about it, and the author brought my attention to SSHL (Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss) which I didn't even know was a thing before. I appreciated reading a perspective that, to me, was very new.

But I suspect I am just not smart enough for The Hearing Test. The narrative is one long meandering stream-of-consciousness, which, had I known, would have turned me away from the book immediately. I never like stream-of-consciousness styles and this book was no exception.

The mundane happens, the narrator considers it with a thought and complexity I was never convinced it deserved. Occasionally, we would get lines like this:

Silence is when someone says, Actually don’t come, and you tell them you’re already here, waiting downstairs.

... and I would think Man, I’m not sure I’m that deep.

Style issues aside, I could see some important points and themes shining through. The narrator points out the distinction between having words and having sounds, a theme that Angie Kim explored in Happiness Falls. Someone may be unable to hear or speak, but that does not make them literally "nonverbal" as in "without words". A person can have language and understanding, even if they lack the means to hear or speak sounds.

It is unfortunate that I just don't click with this style of writing.

[Alwynne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eliza Barry Callahan’s semi-autobiographical debut centres on an artist based in New York where she lives alone, except for her small dog, making a living scoring student films and commercials. Callahan’s narrator’s slowly rebuilding her life after a messy breakup with a man she calls the filmmaker. But her attempts are abruptly derailed by the sudden onset of a condition that causes gradual hearing loss, accompanied by unpleasant and debilitating auditory symptoms. Callahan’s story focuses on the narrator’s day-to-day, her reactions to what’s happening to her, her attempts to adjust to her new reality. Callahan was tutored by Leslie Jamison and Kate Zambreno, writers I admire. There are definite traces of their styles and sensibilities flavouring her writing but I felt Callahan lacked their assurance, their skill in crafting a coherent narrative.

Callahan’s novel features numerous arresting scenes and entertaining anecdotes; there’s a memorably excruciating encounter between the narrator and the eccentric painter who owns her apartment building. The fact that the building’s courtyard was part of the original set of Hitchcock’s Rear Window underlines Callahan’s depiction of New York as an alienating space in which people observe each other from a distance but find actual intimacy elusive. But I found myself equally distanced from Callahan’s narrator. The narrative’s packed with would-be meaningful allusions to writers, artists and philosophers from Roland Barthes to Clarice Lispector and Robert Walser. Yet these elements never seemed to add up to anything of substance. In fact, there are so many references littering this novel it felt more like a variation on a commonplace book. The narrator’s personal experiences mostly receded into the background, making her character so hazy, I found it impossible to sustain any interest in her.

[Dannie · Rating 4 out of 5]

i fear this book may have been too smart for me.

we follow the MCs thoughts as she wakes up one day with sudden hearing loss. we follow as she deals with doctors, trials, romances, relationships, life.

this book is not split into chapters but instead 4 parts. It’s fairly short, coming in at around 160 pages. most of it was an easy read, flowing like one really long thought process. Much less description of things and more this happened, she said this, then this happened.

a great piece for thought, for awareness of how others live, from what life might be like if you suddenly woke up with hearing loss and for others who always do.

it reminds me slightly of The Idiot, a plot where nothing happened but something kinda happened but also the meaning of life is dissected with no answer. i enjoyed it nonetheless.

thank you for the ARC via netgalley

[Nico · Rating 5 out of 5]

a lovely debut. i’m at a stage in my reading life where confident prose is basically the only thing i care about, and eliza’s voice grabbed me from the first page and never let go. so efficient, so fluid - such a joy to read.

[CJ Alberts]

Can’t tell if I liked this book or not. I get the Cusk cosplay but it doesn’t work from the mouth of a twenty something in Brooklyn in the same way tbh. Some really crystallized good writing in here towards the end tho. Also a LOT of ellipses and em dashes lol

[nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Major thanks to NetGalley and Catapult for offering me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:

"𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴. 𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯—𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥, 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦. "𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘣 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘣 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘫𝘶𝘳𝘺."

Found my first top read of the year.

A woman goes deaf and experiences a Lispector-existentialism through a rabbit hole of Cusk-characters.

It's so quiet. Muted. There's a humming throughout. The book is a long whisper. And it reaches and reaches for ways to make sense of the world in trains of thought that end up in pockets of my own doubts and miseries, in ways I've realized I've disconnected from the world, from people. This book is the entire experience of gripping, grappling at what is shoulder-close. It's seeking intimacy. It's seeking for a certain kind of belonging only found in apparition or peripheries.

"𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘣𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘧 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘐 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦."
...
"..𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴. 𝘛𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘦𝘸..𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘳. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳."

[cass krug · Rating 3 out of 5]

the narrator of the hearing test is diagnosed with sudden deafness and then keeps a record of the ensuing year. she ruminates on silence, connections between people, and how we view the world. i found the writing style really promising and can understand the rachel cusk comparisons, but the book left something to be desired for me. callahan does an obscuring of character in this book that is really reminiscent of cusk’s more recent work, so maybe i needed a bit of separation from my two read throughs of parade before i got to this one. i just felt incredibly disconnected from the characters in a way that impeded my enjoyment of the book. i also think it would’ve benefitted from being read in one sitting due to the short length and more stream-of-consciousness style. a promising debut - i’m going to chalk up my lukewarm feelings to user error/wrong book at the wrong time. if you have an afternoon to get lost in the prose and ideas, i think you’d have a much better time than i did!

[Fiona W · Rating 5 out of 5]

This had multiple sentences good enough to tape to a wall. I wish I had read it in one sitting. I read almost all of it in a rush, and then came back and finished it a couple days later, and the ending would have landed better if I hadn’t paused.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of you may know that I've struggled with severe hearing loss and permanent high pitch ringing in my ears (like ever present static), an issue I spent the better part of 15 years compensating for, and ignoring, until finally seeing a specialist three years ago. The dr's believe mine came about as a result of Lyme disease, and though it doesn't appear to be worsening, there's always that worry that one day I'll wake up to complete and utter silence.

So when I saw The Hearing Test, I requested a review copy of this one from Catapult. It sounded intriguing and I was hoping to find bits of myself in the protagonist, who awakens one morning with hearing loss in one of her ears. Unlike me, though, this prompts her to seek out immediate medical attention, and sets her off on a year long journey of self discovery, and clinical trials, and more and more tests, always carrying around the fear of deafness, which hovers over everything she does, like a dark cloud she cannot shake.

Hearing issues aside, there wasn't much else I connected with. This is going to fold perfectly into the sad girl genre - that passive aggressive okayness to just play out the cards that have been dealt, not quite miserable but not really happy either, aimlessness of most present day twenty something female characters. Days turn into months, there are texts and phone calls and meals at restaurants and virtual hypnotherapist visits, but it's 159 pages of a whole lot of nothing really happening.

There's a line in the book that I'm going to manipulate for the purposes of this review because it's just so damn perfect: It's between her and her ex-boyfriend and it says "Your paintings are like my films. About nothing. But with precision."

Yes, Callahan, yes. This book was like all of the other sad girl books. About nothing. But with precision.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction

While doing dishes, I could hear my upstairs neighbour jumping rope. This neighbour always walked a line of disrespect. At 10:00 pm on a Sunday? I thought. But when I shut off the water, I found it was the sound of my own heartbeat.

When I blinked, I could hear my eyelids meeting – dull and dense like a head hitting a pillow. The blink and the heartbeat moved in contrapuntal motion. It was like an argument over how time should be divided. Punctuated. Wounded. Like this. No, like that. While the heart is very reliable, the blink is indeterminate – once I paid attention to the blinking, almost every blink surprised me. I could never find a pattern. I thought, in the end, which would have the last word? The blink or the beat?

Eliza Barry Callahan's The Hearing Test is published in the UK by Peninsula Press an independent publisher of boundary-pushing fiction and essays.

This is a auto-fictional but creative work, based on the author's own experience of Sudden Hearing Loss. It begins:

On August 29, 2019, I was meant to travel to Venice to watch a lifelong friend get married — a small reception for just ten people. The friend was marrying a Venetian. When I awoke that morning, I felt a deep drone in my right ear accompanied by a sound I can best compare to a large piece of sheet metal being rocked, a perpetually rolling thunder. I moved from the bedroom to the living room in a controlled panic, where my little black dog stood by the door and barked. It was just past time for her morning walk. The bark, the first distinct, external sound I had heard since waking, was distorted and distant. When I called out her name, I found my own voice sounded unfamiliar.

Our narrator prepares film scores for a living, but the sudden loss of her hearing causes her to retreat from society, her own life on hold as she undergoes medical treatment (including trials for which she is paid):

In the mornings, I had a new routine. Over decaffeinated coffee, I thought about my profession. I was incapable of specificity. I would think in big sweeping thoughts. I thought about what I would still like to profess. I thought about what was foreclosed and what wasn’t. I thought about the slow drain of my bank account like a leak that was unaccounted for — the caulking! I thought about making something of nothing. I thought about making nothing of nothing. And finally, nothing of something. Each presented its own challenge.

The New York flat she is renting overlooks the courtyard, her landlord tells her the one time they meet, that Hitchcock used as a model for the set for Rear Window, and the author has said in an interview: “I wanted to name the book Rear Window. But that was apparently going to be really unsearchable and a difficult sell. In my mind, the book is about watching, and just being a little bit outside of life.”

The narrator undergoes various medical trials and interacts - but more remotely than in person - with others include her ex-partner, who she maintains a close relationship with, and his new partner - I felt that he had become an external hard drive onto which a backup of my life had been saved, in increments, for good measure.

The narrative has a very Cuskian feel, both in the stories others tell her, and her passivity in these conversations, and in the connections to various works of art and artists, although this is done is an knowing way. When the name of her audiologist, Robert Walther causes the narrator to recall Robert Walser, she add, pithily a writer whom artists always embarrassingly seem to think belongs to them like a secret.. And the voice - often rather opaque, at times almost delphic - is certainly distinctive.

Not 100% successful but very worthwhile.

[flavia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"i thought about making something of nothing. i thought about making nothing of nothing. and finally, nothing of something. each presented its own challenge"

the hearing test is a wonderful, honest, elegant, and funny book. it feels at once astoundingly contemporary, and at the same time the echo of a 19th century travelogue written by a youthful german aristocrat before he inherits his fortunes. how fabulous is that. i loved it! if you love delightful sentences, turns of phrase, chortling while a gentle tear dribbles down your cheek - you surely will also.

reminded me of claire louise bennet, rachel cusk, natalia ginzburg, annie ernaux, nabokov, elif batuman and a great number of other great writers.

[Renée Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading a story about woman losing her hearing while you are gaining yours back is anxiety inducing. Very reminiscent of Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy.

[kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

After receiving a diagnosis of sudden deafness, our narrator begins to turn down offers for work, her job having been a score producer—therefore, a reliance on the ability to hear. Living alone and without the projection of career, she becomes somewhat of a recluse; venturing out primarily for grocery shopping and to attend weekly hearing tests in exchange for compensation.

This meandering, stream-of-concious novel certainly won’t be for everyone but I adored the mundanity of our narrator’s every day life and following her acceptance—and denial—of her diagnosis. Because of its style, I often wondered where this was really going but the voice of the narrator begged me to continue and I found it quite addicting. It is astute, funny, and consuming.

“This was about sound, not words. I would always have words…”

[Bookphenomena (Micky) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this non-fiction because it promised resonance with my own experiences of sudden deafness and in the early couple of sections, it delivered. Barry-Callahan described similar experiences to my own of noises in the ear as hearing quickly demises, like rolling thunder and engines, until there's a quietening of that last echo of hearing. She described well how sentences get lost, words disappear and you're left trying to string people's sentences together like a puzzle in quick-time.

After that, I hated everything in this book. I hated the narrative style, the abruptness to the writing alongside a weirdness I couldn't get on board with. Her life wasn't remotely interesting, the relationships, the hypnotherapy and the 'buzzer' were all equally bizarre. I didn't like her narration either.

Clearly, I can't recommend this to (d)eaf people or hearing people alike. we

[Charlotte Wenthur · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is interesting to me the way that this was written. It is fiction, but it feels like the diary of the author maybe. The experiences are so unique and thought out I can’t help but wonder if they are her actual memories. I liked how she relates to her loss of hearing, she doesn’t feel pain directly from it but she slowly loses things she never thought she would miss, like the sound of rain falling on her air conditioner. This is what is painful to her, the slow loss of everything that is familiar, and the need to adapt as she continues to lose her hearing without knowing why or how much of it she will lose. She goes through stages of acceptance and despair, ending the novel with a philosophical approach to her hearing, accepting it like ‘a house accepting its life on land.’ Im going to use this for my fem lit of disability final paper, can’t wait to revisit and do a closer reading second time around.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stream of consciousness doesn’t much work when you find the protagonist not terribly interesting and their random associative thoughts just too unconnected to anything, as was the case for me here. By far the most interesting thing is the narrative hook, waking up to sudden hearing loss, which helps give the book its moments but otherwise this passive character didn’t work for me. Nor did writing like:

She said that she always seemed to witness accidents. That she was a regular bystander. How would you define an accident? I asked her. Hours later, she wrote back saying that she would define an accident as a patient thing, an addendum to air, like a gas that hangs and binds with a feeling and then transforms into a bag of invisible bricks.

Friends don’t let friends go around communicating in poetic mystifications.

The character finally breaks out of her passivity in the novel’s final pages when she initiates trading nudes with and having phone sex with her ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, after which she remembers that her doctor told her to try to avoid moments of heightened sensory experiences, like orgasms. Oh well. Maybe that should have been the halfway point of the novel rather than coming too late.

[Abby Clark]

DNF

[ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very reminiscent of Cusk, Levy, and Batuman. I liked the detached, direct writing style. It made me feel as though I was floating above the scenes and watching. I enjoyed being within the main character's mind, and following her as her hearing wanes. This was a very reflective read for me.

[juno · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was clear to me then that what I feared was losing the variations of silence. It became clearer to me that the fear was the frame of my body. It became clearer still that the fear was not being able to see, so to speak, through the glass.

somehow just clicked for me.. love the way callahan precisely introduces certain images, ideas, fragments of thoughts, and then is able to use those threads to communicate such complex feelings in just a few perfect simple lines. so wonderfully economical + lucid

at all times u feel that callahan has balanced hold on the absurdist aspects of this idk i just rlly loved it! didn't tire me out at all the way stream-of-conscious books sometimes tend to, callahan's writing was just that enjoyable for me. totally evokes at every point the feeling of slowly slipping into urself, of being in a frosted glass room where only ur own sounds are echoed back at u

And the light filled the valley with rays that loved their lives as rays. And the grass loved its life as grass. And the green loved its life as green.

[Tyler Chong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really love how the narrative flows in this book, the tangents that the author goes on in each section makes it feel like you are the narrator thinking these things rather than being told a story. "I had a terrible fear of hurting people because I had decided from a young age that I was good". Wowww....... yeah.... anyhoo so good!

[JavierHT]

“Uno de los peligros de pasear es acabar convertido en testigo de algo. Y me pregunté: ¿Qué es el acto de atestiguar sino una afirmación del silencio”.

“El silencio es lo que acompaña la caída hasta el estado de haber caído. ¿El tiempo gramatical del silencio? Un presente que se renueva sin cesar”.

[Ruth L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well ok

[Salty Swift · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eliza Barry Callahan's debut starts off with the female protagonist's sudden hearing loss and moves into multiple directions at once. Stream of consciousness writing seamlessly moves the plot along between relationships, trips, and a dozen encounters between musicians, artists, landlord, doctor and a filmmaker. While I was often puzzled by the journey and its purpose, the propulsive writing kept me on the edge of my seat. Breath-taking and highly engaging novel.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I kept score of a year in which I was flung suddenly from my own life, only to learn that to see something in its entirety is to be entirely outside of that thing. How I took one long walk around myself. How I wrote it down-the stark, inescapable facts of a situation.”

A young musician’s life is upended when she wakes one morning to a dull and consistent droning in her right ear. Faced with the reality of degenerative hearing loss and no clear path to recovery, she begins writing down her experiences and observations, which gradually shift outside herself.

The Hearing Test is ripe with astute and often funny observations. There is a detachment from the self that works in this novel. Despite our protagonist’s focus on those around her, we cannot help but focus in on her.

💬”I wondered what sort of suffering had led this friend to feel pain on my behalf.”

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. Sometimes I struggle with the “no plot, just vibes,” books, but as a result of Callahan’s impeccable writing, I deeply enjoyed the process of reading this one. Reviews are touting her work as meant for fans of Rachel Cusk, Clarice Lispector and Fleur Jaeggy, all authors I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, and I’d say the influence is clear. Stark, astute, detached prose of a woman in crisis. Eliza Barry Callahan deserves a spot among her predecessors.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE HEARING TEST by Eliza Barry Callahan is a great debut novel! I started reading this one night before bed and that was a mistake because I wished I could have just stayed up and read it all in one sitting. I ended up finishing this book in 24 hours and I really enjoyed it. I usually don’t enjoy too many unnamed characters but here it works. There’s the unnamed narrator, her ex the filmmaker and his girlfriend. I really liked how within this short novel there’s a full arc of the main character and insight into her intimacies, her eccentricities, and her senses. I would love to read this author’s next book!

Thank you to Catapult for my gifted review copy!

[Maddie Grimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that flows so effortlessly and is so easy to read from start to finish, you’ll not even get the chance to notice how impressively smart it is until you look up from the last page. A story about a woman who wakes up one morning with sudden hearing loss, The Hearing Test reads like a whisper in your ear—steady and contemplative, subtly and gently commanding your attention.

[Leila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Cuskian in its emotional detachedness, stream-of-consciousness writing, and its unexpected pockets of profundity. Much more a reflection on silence than on deafness, the novel takes its reader on a meandering journey of reckoning with the mundane, with solitude, and the loss of familiarity. Side note I love the abundant use of ellipses... I felt very represented lol.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

shoutout to prednisone tapers

[Hannah Wanamaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books like this are definitely an acquired taste, but they’re ones that I quite enjoy. Blending narrative with philosophy, art, and the depths of loneliness, the book explores how someone might navigate profound changes in their life. In many respects, I found this to be deeply relatable and reflective of many human experiences, not just the loss of a sense.

It’s not a book that warrants deep analysis to understand what’s happening, but coming at it with some knowledge about different art forms—especially still lifes, Italian art, and American art from the last century—and some of the more recent philosophical thinkers/styles/schools of thought might make for a smoother read.

Fusing the dialogue and narrator’s thoughts can be a tricky endeavour but I think Callahan does this quite poetically. She doesn’t use quotation marks, which puts the reader into the narrator’s POV, effectively asking us to imagine what the loss of a sense could feel like in life’s seemingly mundane moments.

Overall, I found this to be a lovely and thoughtful piece, and I’m curious to see what she comes up with next.

[annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

slow and philosophical, a bit too much so for me to fully fall in love with it. there was some really beautiful writing here, and also some wryly funny asides that i enjoyed, but ultimately the somewhat affectless narrative voice and the meandering nature of this novel with its constant digressions into semi-unrelated topics made it hard for me to fully connect to it. i also wish we had dove deeper into eliza's experience with sudden deafness; the moments where the novel really dealt with it were strong. overall, though, the smooth and elegant prose made for a pleasant reading experience, if not a super memorable one

3.5 stars