Bird-Eyes

by Madelyn Arnold

In 1963, being different can be illegal-as sixteen-year-old Latisha, a lesbian runaway, discovers when she is sentenced to treatment in the locked ward of a mental hospital for being "incorrigible" and a threat to society. Her best friend in the ward is Anna, an older deaf woman committed for depression. Although she's forbidden to communicate in sign language, Anna teaches Latisha and gives her a "Bird-Eyes." Their growing friendship and their alliance against the hospital oppression forms a bond that is the catalyst for Latisha's eventual act of defiance. A brilliant novel of friendship and defiance, of passion and resistance.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very, very difficult book to rate –– in many ways, its very construction is "Mad," evading the rationality with which the average reviewer might comment on its contents. Bird-Eyes begins as a tight, followable narrative of Latisha, a pathologized teenage Black lesbian who has been institutionalized among adults of varying disabilities. However, as the narrative unfolds, it seems to spread and blur before the reader's eyes: dreams contend with "realities," all of which come under scrutiny by institution staff, who believe all of Latisha's words to be as "inherently insane" as she is.

Meanwhile, we jump through space and time, glimpsing Latisha's own painful history, including the immense trauma tied to her lesbian subjectivity. Between scenes of unspoken dialogue between Latisha and Anna, a signing Deaf woman deemed subhuman for her use of sign, we're pulled into the infuriating and alien machanations of the institution itself. Diagnoses are given, kept, shrugged off for others; but each subsequent truth remains "true"because a psychiatrist has declared it so. Dr. Kim, a psychiatrist obsessed with cure and bodily/psychological hygiene, engages in increasingly frustrating and indecipherable conversations with Latisha as their understandings of Truth grow distant.

For her own part, Latisha's story gradually unravels even as the story we read progresses. She is transformed from a merely "incorrigible" subject into a Mad one, all the while forcing the reader to take her perspective, understanding psychiatric hypocrisy and abuse. In between scenes of intense physical, emotional, and sexual trauma, Latisha gains profound insights into the scientific production of objective "Truth." The passages in which she considers these insights are among the strongest in the book, and remain consistent even as other elements of her story become spatially and temporally tangled. 

On the other hand, this novel absolutely reeks of ableism; use of words like "vegetable" to describe disabled people is liberal. Latisha –– and, by extension, Arnold as the author –– takes pains to separate herself both from the recoverable front-ward patients *and* from the r-tarded (also used liberally) back-ward patients. She uses this as a means to leverage legitimacy as a narrator (within the text and outside it) and establish relationships with other inmates and staff, keeping in place the intellectual hierarchy from which many Mad people still benefit.

Further, though I admire the unravelling form the narrative takes, it reads increasingly as messy rather than intentional as the story progresses. I think this book really could have benefitted from another round of edits, allowing the raw power of Latisha's experiences and observations to shine through even as her world descends into a chaos of moment and memory.

All that said, I have never in my life read a book like this, and I know I will be returning to it again and again. Bird-Eyes is a treasure. It's a treasure replete with drawbacks, but one that is incredibly precious if you're able to get through it.

[Ann]

I remember reading this book in the fall of 1992. It was one of the many books put out by the women's braille press.
If anybody enjoys reading about persons with different types of disabilities, they will enjoy this novel.

[Leigh Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deaf reader reviewing books with deaf characters.

I haven't been able to find any author info, but I assume she is hearing because the hearing narrator tends to wax poetic about Anna’s deafness. Overall, the representation was fairly accurate and respectful, showing the realities of Anna's circumstances in an Illinois psych ward in 1964 and the abuse she receives at the hands of medical professionals.

Since there wasn't anything particularly egregious, I'll just touch on a few points:

-Latisha keeps musing about Anna’s story: she was brought in for being depressed after her husband’s death and not socializing with people (hard to do when you’re deaf anyway). Anna has low literacy so Latisha assumes she was tricked into signing herself in as suicidal.

-Because Anna can’t read well (at least when she’s forcedly doped up) so Latisha starts mouthing and miming at her to teach her survival skills in the ward. Anna teaches Latisha a few signs, which are described fairly accurately. Over time, Latisha slowly learns a few signs, but never becomes fluent, which is refreshingly realistic. Anna gives Latisha the sign-name bird-eyes (hence the title).

-“She had a very deaf smile—with her whole personality in it.” Not really sure what this means. It sort of comes across as infantilizing, but this is part of what I mean when I wrote earlier that Latisha waxes poetic about Anna's deafness. There are several such statements about Anna that don't make much sense to me.

On another note, this novel took me quite a while to get through. The content is emotionally taxing.

[Bethany · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book about a mental institution in the 60s narrated by a young lesbian was about as bleak as one would expect. I liked Latisha's narrative voice, though. I do wish there were more reviews because the ending confused me. Anna, the deaf woman, committing murder seemingly out of the blue?? I don't get it. Maybe I'll read the last few chapters again, I don't know.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quit reading this one about halfway through because it's just too damn disturbing. I know that's the point, and it's well-written with interesting characters, but why subject myself to more?

[Emily Kestrel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is set in a snakepit-style mental hospital, though Latisha, our adolescent protagonist, isn't actually crazy--she got admitted for being "incorrigible" (the novel is set in the 1960s), which means a runaway lesbian who was prostituting herself to support a heroin addiction. Her liking girls is seen as the big problem by the staff--the rest of it, they can deal with. But at least she doesn't have to have ECT or aversion therapy, like some of the male patients.

I thought the story was a bit over-the-top, but Latisha's narrative voice never falters, and there are some truly insightful passages.