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Informative,
Optimistic,
Inspiring

1 review

Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love
by Myron Uhlberg

Published: 2009-02-03
Hardcover : 256 pages
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1 club reading this now
4 members have read this book
Recommended to book clubs by 1 of 1 members
By turns heart-tugging and hilarious, Myron Uhlberg’s memoir tells the story of growing up as the hearing son of deaf parents—and his life in a world that he found unaccountably beautiful, even as he longed to escape it.

“Does sound have rhythm?” my father asked. “Does it rise ...
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Introduction

By turns heart-tugging and hilarious, Myron Uhlberg’s memoir tells the story of growing up as the hearing son of deaf parents—and his life in a world that he found unaccountably beautiful, even as he longed to escape it.

“Does sound have rhythm?” my father asked. “Does it rise and fall like the ocean? Does it come and go like the wind?”

Such were the kinds of questions that Myron Uhlberg’s deaf father asked him from earliest childhood, in his eternal quest to decipher, and to understand, the elusive nature of sound. Quite a challenge for a young boy, and one of many he would face.

Uhlberg’s first language was American Sign Language, the first sign he learned: “I love you.” But his second language was spoken English—and no sooner did he learn it than he was called upon to act as his father’s ears and mouth in the stores and streets of the neighborhood beyond their silent apartment in Brooklyn.

Resentful as he sometimes was of the heavy burdens heaped on his small shoulders, he nonetheless adored his parents, who passed on to him their own passionate engagement with life. These two remarkable people married and had children at the absolute bottom of the Great Depression—an expression of extraordinary optimism, and typical of the joy and resilience they were able to summon at even the darkest of times.

From the beaches of Coney Island to Ebbets Field, where he watches his father’s hero Jackie Robinson play ball, from the branch library above the local Chinese restaurant where the odor of chow mein rose from the pages of the books he devoured to the hospital ward where he visits his polio-afflicted friend, this is a memoir filled with stories about growing up not just as the child of two deaf people but as a book-loving, mischief-making, tree-climbing kid during the remarkably eventful period that spanned the Depression, the War, and the early fifties.

Editorial Review

Amazon Best of the Month, February 2009: With touching simplicity, author Myron Uhlberg recounts his complex childhood spent bridging the gap between sign language and the spoken word. As the hearing son of deaf parents, young Myron served as their emissary to the audible world while enduring the painful ignorance of a society that dismissed the hearing-impaired as "dummies." Yet eliciting pity is not the aim of this memoir. Hands of My Father is less about the challenges Uhlberg faced, and more about the love that bound his family together. Amid each tale of hardship, he describes moments so profoundly tender that you are immediately excused for the lump forming in the back of your throat. "All that I needed, in order to understand how much my father loved me," he explains, "was the feel of his arms around me." Though there may have been much to struggle against, Uhlberg's stories reveal that he had even more to be thankful for. - Dave Callanan

Excerpt

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Discussion Questions

Suggested by Members

Children with adult-like responsibility in the home
Couples having children during Depression & in difficult periods of history
"Mouth-talk" vs ASL
by MarlaTapper (see profile) 10/29/15

Notes From the Author to the Bookclub

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Book Club Recommendations

NYC food!
by MarlaTapper (see profile) 10/29/15
Serve anything that related to NYC: pizza, bagels, cheesecake, NY State wine/beer, pickles, Italian ices, etc.

Member Reviews

Overall rating:
 
 
by Karen F. (see profile) 10/27/16

 
  "Great for book clubs!"by Marla T. (see profile) 10/29/15

Not only was this memoir a thoroughly enjoyable read, but the story also provided our club with our most interesting discussion ever.

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