Published 1st February by Tinder Press.
From the cover of the book:
Ellen Lark is on the verge of marriage when she and her fiancé receive an unexpected visit from Alexander Graham Bell.Ellen knows immediately what Bell really wants from her. Ellen is deaf, and for a time was Bell's student in a technique called Visible Speech. As he instructed her in speaking, Bell also confided in her about his dream of producing a device which would transmit the human voice along a wire: the telephone. Now, on the cusp of wealth and renown, Bell wants Ellen to speak up in support of his claim to the patent to the telephone, which is being challenged by rivals.
But Ellen has a different story to tell: that of how Bell betrayed her, and other deaf pupils, in pursuit of ambition and personal gain, and cut Ellen off from a community in which she had come to feel truly at home. It is a story no one around Ellen seems to want to hear - but there may never be a more important time for her to tell it.
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Ellen Lark is looking forward to the prospect of marriage with her fiancé, Harmon, when they receive an unexpected visit from Alexander Graham Bell. But Bell's visit is not purely a social one. Years before, Ellen, deaf from a very young age, was a pupil of Bell's, and they became close as he instructed her in a technique called Visible Speech, intended to allow deaf people to converse with the hearing.
Bell, with promises of involving Harmon in lucrative business deals, hopes to encourage Ellen to support his claim to be the true patent holder of the telephone, in the light of a dispute about who was the real inventor of the system - and thus, open the door for him to secure wealth and renown.
However, Ellen is not quite as friendly to Bell's cause as he assumes. Her time with Bell brings painful memories of betrayal, control, and being separated from a deaf community that could have offered her so much more than false promises. This is her chance to tell the story of the deaf pupils whose lives were marked by the ambitions of this man, if only she can make her voice heard...
A Sign of Her Own is a difficult to sum up in a few words. Ostensibly, it is a poignant coming of age story about one woman's stand to 'speak out' for herself and a deaf community affected by the movement to ban the use of sign language in favour of oralisation methods. However, it is also about so much more!
The novel follows two timelines: one is Ellen's story from her childhood, and the other from the time Bell reappears in her life. It is not always easy to tell at first glance which timeline you are reading about in any one chapter, especially as the timelines come to the point where they clash, but I actually rather enjoyed the way they blur. This evokes a feeling that you are grasping at meaning alongside Ellen as she tries to negotiate the intentions of characters who not only do not always say what they mean, but whose speech is just beyond her understanding.
The going is slow when it comes to the twists and turns in the overall plot of Bell's business troubles, especially since the timeline following Ellen's childhood and scholarly days mostly concerns itself with family dramas, the shady ins and outs of the Visual Speech method, and the destructive preoccupation with forcing deaf people to communicate like the hearing. However, everything that happens in the past impacts of the way Ellen behaves in the future, and brings about a very powerful conclusion to the story.
I do not think I have ever read anything quite like this before, While I do not pretend to have a grip on exactly how some of the technical systems talked about in this novel actually work, there is so much fascinating information about the mechanics of speech and vocalisation. I spent quite a bit of time diving down a whole warren full of rabbit holes about the technologies and methods described, and about Alexander Graham Bell too. But it is not really the technical aspects of this debut that make is so compelling, even though they are so interesting. It is the way Marsh gives you incredible insight into the the experience of being deaf in a hearing world that makes it so moving, and I promise it will give you a great deal of food for thought. I am particularly struck by the way Marsh uses the stark contrasts between the lives of the deaf characters, and that of a man determined to produce a telephone system they would be unable to use.
This is not an easy read. Marsh's storytelling borders on the abstract at times, as it flips between methods, motives, and emotion. and you do have to persevere to make your way to the stirring pay-off. However, I found it a very rewarding experience, and will spend a lot of time thinking about her message. This is an excellent choice for a book club book if you are looking for a phenomenal debut to get your teeth in to. It really is rather special.
A Sign of Her Own is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Wildfire for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
About the author:
Great review. This certainly sounds like a unique book. I'm glad you pointed out its not an easy read, because sometimes its nice to know that before going into a book. I will have to check this one out.
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