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But You Look So Normal

Lost and Found in a Hearing World

ISBN-13: 9781647426262

Author(s): Claudia Marseille

Subjects: BG, DNB

Publisher: Simon And Schuster Group USA

Publisher Imprint: She Writes Press

Publication Date: 14-05-2024

Format: Paperback / softback

Availability: In stock

£16.99
But You Look So Normal

About the book

2024 IPPY Awards Gold Winner in Best First Book (Nonfiction/Personal) By age four, Claudia Marseille had hardly uttered a word. When her parents finally had her hearing tested and learned she had a severe hearing loss, they chose to mainstream her, hoping this would offer her the most 'normal' childhood possible. With the help of a primitive hearing aid, Claudia worked hard to learn to hear, lipread, and speak even as she tried to hide her disability in order to fit in. As a result, she was often misunderstood, lonely, and isolated - fitting into neither the hearing world nor the Deaf culture. This memoir explores Claudia's relationships with her German refugee parents - a disturbed, psychoanalyst father obsessed over various harebrained projects and moneymaking schemes and a Jewish mother who had survived the Holocaust in Munich - and with her own identity. Claudia shares how she emerged from loneliness and social isolation, explored her Jewish identity, struggled to find a career compatible with hearing loss, and eventually opened herself to a life of creativity and love. But You Look So Normal is the inspiring story of a life affected but not defined by an invisible disability. It is a journey through family, loss, shame, identity, love, and healing as Claudia finally, joyfully, finds her place in the world.