Words for a Deaf Daughter

by Paul West

The author reflects upon his daughter's struggles to overcome the isolation imposed by her deafness

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Paul West (February 23, 1930) was an English-born novelist, literary historian and poet, the author of 24 novels, who lived in America since the early 1960s. He resided in upstate New York with his wife, the writer, poet and well-known naturalist Diane Ackerman, until his death in 2015. Paul, still remembered with affection by his old colleagues and friends in England as a big, jolly man, was born in Eckington, which is near (and now considered a part of) Sheffield in South Yorkshire, but was during West’s childhood a Derbyshire village associated with the famous literary Sitwells of Renishaw.
Paul was honoured with the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award (1985), the Lannan Prize for Fiction (1993), the Grand Prix Halperine-Kaminsky Award (1993), and three Pushcart Prizes (1987, 1991, 2003). He was also a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Public Library Literary Lion (1987), and a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters 1996, France).
His parents, Alfred and Mildred, really cared for books, and created an environment which ensured that young Paul inherited a great passion for literature, which was enhanced when he went from his native village to study first at Oxford University in England and later at Columbia University in America. He never lived in England again after going to Columbia, and in later years Paul was involved with other US universities in teaching roles, notably Pennsylvania State University.
Paul West’s novels have included: ‘A Quality of Mercy’ (1961); ‘Tenement of Clay’ (1965); ‘Alley Jaggers’ (1966); ‘I'm Expecting to Live Quite Soon’ (1970); ‘Bela Lugosi's White Christmas’ (1972); ‘The Very Rich Hours of Count von Stauffenberg’ (1980); ‘Rat Man of Paris’ (1986); ‘The Women of Whitechapel and Jack the Ripper’ (1991); and ‘OK: The Corral, the Earps and Doc Holliday’ (2000).
His non-fiction has included the autobiographical ‘I, Said the Sparrow’, a delightful essay on his Eckington childhood; ‘The Growth of the Novel’ (1959), ‘The Modern Novel’ (in 2 vols, 1963); ‘Robert Penn Warren’ (1964); ‘Words for a Deaf Daughter’ (1969); ‘A Stroke of Genius: Illness and Self-discovery’ (1995); and the remarkable ‘The Shadow Factory’ (2008), the aphasic memoir he dictated with such struggle and resolve –it brings tears to the eyes and admiration to the heart, as we are reminded in reading it of the courage of this man. It is a ‘must-read’ in the context of the terrible stroke he suffered in 2003. Paul’s wife, Diane, also wrote about that stroke and its consequences in her book ‘One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage and the Language of Healing’. Paul’s poetry collections include ‘Poems’ (1952), ‘The Spellbound Horses’ (1960), and ‘The Snow Leopard’ (1964).


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Reviews

[MJ Nicholls]

A frequent admirer of West’s word-splurges (in the likes of Caliban’s Filibuster), in this one I couldn’t progress past p.54. The intention to create an imaginative world from the limited vocabulary of his daughter for me was lost in the rambling, digressive sentences of esoteric, borderline incoherent flitting from one bizarre list or whisk of prose-flexing hooha to the next.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books I hadn't known I needed to read. Paul's love for his daughter is in the depth and intensity of his gaze, that he doesn't look away, but sees her as she is and accepts her as complete.

This is a book dense with detail, and certain parts meander to tangential topics that seem intent on highlighting the vast richness of the world that Paul is eager to share with his language-delayed daughter. His lamentation of this distance is bigger than the book... I am fortunate to have two wonderful and healthy children, yet no profusion of words - no closeness whatsoever - could fully soothe my desire to cross the distance to their mental worlds.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so beautifully written.

[Rikki Irwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautifully written but I couldn't keep myself interested in the subject