2022-11-14
In this debut novel, a young man navigates multiple traumas in blue-collar New England.
Growing up in 1970s and 1980s small-town Connecticut, Roger Evans’ life is hardly idyllic. After a violent relationship, his parents divorce. His mother waits tables, and his abusive, alcoholic father runs the local gas station while struggling with PTSD as a Vietnam veteran. Roger’s Deaf grandfather is his main companion and role model, and the two begin taking American Sign Language classes together, bringing them closer to each other and Deaf culture. But when Roger is in high school, his grandfather is shot by a police officer who didn’t realize the man was deaf and thought he was armed. This is the first of several enormous shocks that rattle Roger’s sense of identity, driving him to first leave home and then to return as a struggling young adult. His relationship with the Deaf community deepens as he learns ASL, participates in a galvanizing student protest at the world’s only Deaf liberal arts college, and eventually begins to lose his hearing like other members of his family. As the world changes around Roger, and he changes within it, he must decide how best to fulfill the titular advice his grandfather gave him after his parents’ divorce: “Remember who you want to be.” Roger is a cleareyed, down-to-earth narrator who values doing “the right thing” while dealing with considerable demons of his own. He’s thoughtful; here, a first kiss makes him reflect on his parents’ relationship: “Was love based on trust? Was that why my parents got divorced, because after my father hit my mother they couldn’t trust each other?” The prose is direct and without affectations, much like Roger himself: “As we left, I told Aunt Carol that I’d write her as soon as I got back. It was the first promise I broke.” Haymes, a late-deafened adult, excels at illustrating the hurdles Deaf people face within the hearing world, from communication breakdowns to being outright ignored or considered helpless. Historical events, including the Cold War and the 1988 Deaf President Now protest at Gallaudet University, anchor the narrative, as do social issues like reproductive rights. Some, like the DPN protest, feel fresh and vivid through Roger’s eyes; others are stale in a narrative that feels overlong. While Roger’s transition from hearing child to Deaf adult is full of emotional complexity, the plot alternately meanders or abruptly skips over swaths of time. Each member of the sizable cast, however, receives nuanced treatment—several, such as Roger’s father, Jake, and best friend James, suffer considerable and layered traumas. Haymes is at his most poignant when expressing Deaf characters’ frustrations, as when Grandpa berates Roger’s mother for not using ASL: “Don’t you realize the name you answer to is the one I gave you! The language you speak is the one I taught you!...Do you think because I can’t hear that I’m helpless? I taught you the same goddamned language you now use to condemn me! So, for Christ’s sake, sign!”
An illuminating, somewhat rambling coming-of-age novel on family and Deafness.
