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The New York Times bestselling author of True Biz retraces her path out of the hearing world and into the deaf community—and seeks to understand what it means to raise children who are different from her—in this emotionally rich memoir.
Sara Nović's early years were steeped in music, Bible study, and a strong desire to fit in. But when she failed her school's mandated hearing test, her worldview was thrown into chaos. Desperate not to be marked as different, she told no one, staying in the hearing world for as long as she could by brute force.
Eventually unable to ignore the fact that she was deaf, Nović sought out other deaf people and was welcomed into a tight knit community rooted in the beauty and joy of American Sign Language. Nović realized that rather than maintaining the facade of her old life or trying to straddle two worlds, she would need to cultivate an existence in the space between.
Now the mother of two young sons—one, biological and hearing, the other, adopted and deaf—Nović reflects on her life both before and after parenthood. She's raising her children within the deaf world, offering them things her younger self needed, all the while knowing that as her children grow, their own paths will branch off from hers in ways she cannot fully predict or plan for.
Interwoven with Nović's personal story is a remarkable portrait of America through reflections on some of its most complex histories: the rise of the Christian right, the thorny world of international adoption, and above all, the deaf and disabled communities' stubborn survival in the face of persistent oppression.
Nović's clear, bold voice is one readers will hold onto, learn from, argue with, and be inspired by, as she asks us to recognize difference as a source of opportunity rather than fear, as a chance to draw families and communities together, and to build something new.
"Lucid and rigorously researched, Nović's memoir offers a powerful critique of the systems that have marginalized deaf Americans across the decades. It's a sobering must-read."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A powerful and poignant account of learning to cherish differences...For anyone who has felt the need to hide their true self, who has struggled with the demands of parenting or found themselves underestimated, Mother Tongue looks at loss and adversity and what makes moving forward possible." —Booklist (starred review)
"In this enraging history and big-hearted family saga, Sara Nović has skillfully subverted the dividing lines of identity, her deafness becoming the thread that connects us all. Mother Tongue is a moral force, and a salve." —Sierra Crane Murdoch, author of Yellow Bird
"Mother Tongue is funny, intimate, honest, and deeply moving. At the same time, it's full of rich historical detail, dazzling critical inquiry, and political fury. I finished it—as I do all of Nović's work—brimming with equal parts rage and hope." —Andrew Leland, author of The Country of the Blind
This information about Mother Tongue was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sara Nović is the author of the New York Times bestseller True Biz and Girl at War, which won the American Library Association's Alex Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She holds an MFA from Columbia University, where she studied fiction and literary translation, and is an instructor of Deaf studies and creative writing. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.
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