True Biz by Sara Nović
Reviewed by Jenna Tomlinson
Nović’s second novel, True Biz, takes its title from American Sign Language (ASL) slang for “real talk.” Released in 2022, it has had a recent resurgence through the charts after being chosen as a Reese’s Book Club pick by Reese Witherspoon.
Centred around a boarding school for pupils with hearing impairments, the River Valley School for the Deaf, it follows three characters’ experiences with hearing impairment - in particular, their experiences of not identifying with their parents.
Charlie is fifteen and has a faulty cochlear implant. Following difficulties in public school, she transfers to River Valley. She has never learnt ASL and her parents do not share her deaf identity. At the school, Charlie meets fellow student, Austin. Austin's hearing impairment is generational on his mother's side, but his father is the school's hearing ASL interpreter. Initially Austin's childhood is happy, but he experiences feelings of exclusion following the arrival of his younger sister (who is born hearing) when he sees his father curate a bond with her that is centred around hearing. River Valley's headmistress February is a child of deaf adults (CODA). She is hearing but uses signing frequently. She's also trying to balance her romantic life with the potential closure of the school.
Drawing on inspiration from the 2003 US Advanced Bionics controversy, Nović has built a novel that not only deals with the deaf experience, but excellently weaves the work of deaf activists through its plot. The book explores the controversy surrounding implants - including faulty implants knowingly being implanted, causing a myriad of health issues for the users, and the belief of some deaf activists that deafness is a cultural identity not a disability, rendering the implant process in infants controversial. In the character of Charlie, we see the amalgamation of these controversies: her implant is faulty and her identity within both the deaf and hearing communities has been impaired by poor advice from professionals. She has no ASL education and no adult deaf role models. Charlie even discusses in the novel how never seeing a deaf adult led her to believe she would grow up to be hearing.
With Nović’s ability to showcase many different viewpoints on this topic and treat it with such tenderness and respect, it may come as no surprise that Nović is an author with lived experience. Nović was not born deaf and has spoken openly about how losing her hearing encouraged her activism. The book weaves some true accounts into Nović’s fictional narrative to provide a balanced debate. The book also contains many ASL signs to reference the point of view for each chapter, which was interesting for me as a non-ASL user. True Biz is not only a great representation of the deaf community but also a tender story about complex people.
Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong
Reviewed by Jenna Tomlinson
Disability Visibility is a non-fiction anthology curating personal accounts from disabled people, in the form of a collection of essays. Edited by Alice Wong, an American disability rights activist, the collection aims to address the fact that the stories of people with disabilities are largely under-represented in the mainstream media. The book was published in line with the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The prevalence of disability in society is becoming more recognised, with census data informing us that there has been an increase in individuals identifying as disabled. Wong argues that this growth hasn't been matched by an increase in representation, particularly in the US where census data informs us that approximately one in five people are living with a disability. In the UK, this figure is estimated to be one in four, or around 24% of the population living with a disability (a figure that numerically equates to around 16.1 million UK residents). Part of Wong's argument was formed by a 2019 survey of the publishing industry by Lee and Low which found that only 11% of those surveyed identified as disabled. The lack of disabled representation in the publishing industry is reflected in the lack of disabled representation in the stories the industry chooses to highlight.
Working with the Disability Visibility Project, which Wong launched in 2014, Wong has collected accounts from known activists such as Harriet McBryde Johnson to emerging voices such as Keah Brown. The seventeen essays discuss themes such as the experience of Indigenous people with disabilities, the importance of adapted resources for independence, and life experiences of people with disabilities such as parenting and the experience of disability in prison.
Wong's own experience of disability does not go unnoticed in her work on this book. Born with spinal muscular atrophy, Wong uses a motorised wheelchair and a BPAP machine as a result of her disability. She has been a formidable activist over the years, fighting for accommodations and accessibility for members of society with disabilities across campuses and offices, as well as lobbying for disability-related curriculums. The book is an empowering and enlightening insight into the lives of people with disabilities and how to be a supportive ally.