What do you think?
Rate this book
The Deaf Heart
Told through a series of quirky, irreverent short stories and letters home during the early 1980s, The Deaf Heart chronicles a year in the life of Dempsey “Max” McCall, a Deaf biomedical photography resident at a teaching hospital on the island of Galveston, Texas. Max strives to become certified as a Registered Biological Photographer while straddling the deaf and hearing worlds. He befriends Reynaldo, an impoverished Deaf Mexican, and they go on a number of unusual escapades around the island.
At the hospital, Max has to contend with hearing doctors, nurses, scientists, and teachers. While struggling through the rigors of his residency and running into bad luck in meeting women, Max discovers an ally in his hearing housemate Zag, a fellow resident who is also vying for certification. Toward the end of his residency, Max meets Maddy, a Deaf woman who helps bring balance to his life.
Author Willy Conley’s stories, some humorous, some poignant, reveal Max’s struggles and triumphs as he attempts to succeed in the hearing world while at the same time navigating the multicultural and linguistic diversity within the Deaf world.
At the hospital, Max has to contend with hearing doctors, nurses, scientists, and teachers. While struggling through the rigors of his residency and running into bad luck in meeting women, Max discovers an ally in his hearing housemate Zag, a fellow resident who is also vying for certification. Toward the end of his residency, Max meets Maddy, a Deaf woman who helps bring balance to his life.
Author Willy Conley’s stories, some humorous, some poignant, reveal Max’s struggles and triumphs as he attempts to succeed in the hearing world while at the same time navigating the multicultural and linguistic diversity within the Deaf world.
- GenresDisability
232 pages, Paperback
First published October 31, 2015
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 4 reviews
July 10, 2018
So... I did not enjoy this book. It's a 1-star for me. But I feel bad rating it so low because of Pro point a. I am conflicted.
PROS:
a) There isn't enough lit out there about Deaf folx working in the healthcare field. Literally the only reason I read til the end. Those parts were really great.
b) I myself have often considered becoming a biomedical photographer so that was cool
c) I love photo inclusions
CONS:
a) The photos were bad. Bland. Boring. Didn't add up nicely with the pictures being described in the story.
b) The plot was meandering to the point where I couldn't really point out a main thread that I felt was fully or consistently developed. Was there any sort of character development throughout? Anywhere?? Literally what was the point???
c) I had to read objectively bad sentences like this:
[NSFW]
What. The fuck.
d) The worst part for me by FAR, so it gets its own section... this book was SEXIST AS HELL. Every single female character was introduced in terms of whether or not the author would fuck her. If he didn't want to fuck her, he dismissed her. The female characters weren't treated with any sort of respect or autonomy, and weren't developed anywhere near as thoroughly as the male ones are. Does every single description of a woman have to begin with her breasts, including every single time after she's already been introduced? Yeah, apparently. UGH. It's just so fucking gross.
Examples:
[NSFW]
e) The antisemitic jokes the MC makes with his best friend, who is Jewish, weren't much fun for me either... but at least that was an (entirely unnecessary) element of the character himself, not the writing style.
PROS:
a) There isn't enough lit out there about Deaf folx working in the healthcare field. Literally the only reason I read til the end. Those parts were really great.
b) I myself have often considered becoming a biomedical photographer so that was cool
c) I love photo inclusions
CONS:
a) The photos were bad. Bland. Boring. Didn't add up nicely with the pictures being described in the story.
b) The plot was meandering to the point where I couldn't really point out a main thread that I felt was fully or consistently developed. Was there any sort of character development throughout? Anywhere?? Literally what was the point???
c) I had to read objectively bad sentences like this:
[NSFW]
What. The fuck.
d) The worst part for me by FAR, so it gets its own section... this book was SEXIST AS HELL. Every single female character was introduced in terms of whether or not the author would fuck her. If he didn't want to fuck her, he dismissed her. The female characters weren't treated with any sort of respect or autonomy, and weren't developed anywhere near as thoroughly as the male ones are. Does every single description of a woman have to begin with her breasts, including every single time after she's already been introduced? Yeah, apparently. UGH. It's just so fucking gross.
Examples:
[NSFW]
e) The antisemitic jokes the MC makes with his best friend, who is Jewish, weren't much fun for me either... but at least that was an (entirely unnecessary) element of the character himself, not the writing style.
Read
December 6, 2022I now know what the worst book I've ever read is.
December 17, 2022
Deaf reader reviewing books with deaf characters. This book is listed on my ranked list of books with deaf characters.
This story follows Max, first white deaf man to be accepted into a biological photography program at Galveston. The deafness itself is handled well and is very accurate, which makes sense because the author is deaf.
My issues are with the racism and misogyny throughout the novel.
Max works with a coroner (Dr. Yazzie) who has a deaf sister and can sign a bit. She has a very paternal/ableist attitude. She mentions that there are “no programs to help deaf children” in her area, and wonders how did Max “get through” high school. She also talks about how in the Navajo nation, disabled children are shunned, uneducated, deprived of language and culture. (Is this true? Google doesn’t turn up much info, especially not for the 80s when this took place.) Dr Yazzie let her sister hang around with her to copy what she did, like chores. Then the family sent her to the Phoenix deaf school to learn ASL, a little of which Yazzie picked up.
You know the author is 100% white because he compares the slur “nid,” derived from NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf), which is used by hearing students to discuss deaf students, the “equivalent of calling black people” the n-word (but he actually writes out the word). Yikes. I can guarantee you, sir, that it is not equivalent. Nid has nothing of the history and oppression and violence attached to the n-word.
Throughout the novel, Conley uses racist terminology (“Indian squaw”, “illegal alien,” “Siamese twins”), ableist terminology (r-slur), trans/homophobia (worries some of the women he asks out are actually men, getting hit in the eye with a ball is “faggy”), misogyny ("I didn’t ride in on a horse. I rode a whore" *slaps girlfriends buttock*).
At one point, Max has retinal surgery and compares it to a Nazi experiment—anti-semitic rhetoric shows up at times, such as calling Zag “Jew Man.” Although the character Zag seems super into the name, it is not clear to me that the author is Jewish.
Max has weird ideas of masculinity (real men don’t eat quiche?). His obsession and fetishization of women is an eye roll every single time. More than 100 pages in, not one woman has appeared for more than a few pages or had a real personality. He fantasizes about strange women (who are generally conventionally attractive and all hearing) sexually and romantically despite barely (or not at all) knowing them. It’s super cringey and gross. He meets an educated Deaf woman named Maddy (also conventionally beautiful) and becomes fast friends. His descriptions of her as well-educated and strong bilingual reveals his attitudes about uneducated Deaf women—he does not want to be involved romantically with Deaf women whom he deems less intelligent, though he knows nothing of the hearing women's education levels when he fantasizes about them. Just gross.
Deaf rep: great. Story and characters: not great.
This story follows Max, first white deaf man to be accepted into a biological photography program at Galveston. The deafness itself is handled well and is very accurate, which makes sense because the author is deaf.
My issues are with the racism and misogyny throughout the novel.
Max works with a coroner (Dr. Yazzie) who has a deaf sister and can sign a bit. She has a very paternal/ableist attitude. She mentions that there are “no programs to help deaf children” in her area, and wonders how did Max “get through” high school. She also talks about how in the Navajo nation, disabled children are shunned, uneducated, deprived of language and culture. (Is this true? Google doesn’t turn up much info, especially not for the 80s when this took place.) Dr Yazzie let her sister hang around with her to copy what she did, like chores. Then the family sent her to the Phoenix deaf school to learn ASL, a little of which Yazzie picked up.
You know the author is 100% white because he compares the slur “nid,” derived from NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf), which is used by hearing students to discuss deaf students, the “equivalent of calling black people” the n-word (but he actually writes out the word). Yikes. I can guarantee you, sir, that it is not equivalent. Nid has nothing of the history and oppression and violence attached to the n-word.
Throughout the novel, Conley uses racist terminology (“Indian squaw”, “illegal alien,” “Siamese twins”), ableist terminology (r-slur), trans/homophobia (worries some of the women he asks out are actually men, getting hit in the eye with a ball is “faggy”), misogyny ("I didn’t ride in on a horse. I rode a whore" *slaps girlfriends buttock*).
At one point, Max has retinal surgery and compares it to a Nazi experiment—anti-semitic rhetoric shows up at times, such as calling Zag “Jew Man.” Although the character Zag seems super into the name, it is not clear to me that the author is Jewish.
Max has weird ideas of masculinity (real men don’t eat quiche?). His obsession and fetishization of women is an eye roll every single time. More than 100 pages in, not one woman has appeared for more than a few pages or had a real personality. He fantasizes about strange women (who are generally conventionally attractive and all hearing) sexually and romantically despite barely (or not at all) knowing them. It’s super cringey and gross. He meets an educated Deaf woman named Maddy (also conventionally beautiful) and becomes fast friends. His descriptions of her as well-educated and strong bilingual reveals his attitudes about uneducated Deaf women—he does not want to be involved romantically with Deaf women whom he deems less intelligent, though he knows nothing of the hearing women's education levels when he fantasizes about them. Just gross.
Deaf rep: great. Story and characters: not great.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 4 reviews