Reading Sara Novic

Once in a while you come across a book that you want to put in the hands of everyone you know. "Girl at War" is that kind of book. In it, we meet Ana, a 10 year old girl living in Zagreb, Croatia when the Yugoslavian civil war breaks out. The novel alternates between Ana as a ten year old confronting the atrocities of war first hand and Ana as a 20 year old testifying against Milosevic at the United Nations war crimes tribunal. It is a remarkable novel in every way. And with the ongoing war in the Ukraine, its significance explodes off the pages.

"Girl at War" is a book I wanted to know more about when I'd finished the last page. And so I read on through the Reader's Guide. There I found an interview between Novic and author Julia Glass that shed light on the genesis of the story and Novic's path to becoming a writer. Novic spent time with friends and family in Croatia after she'd graduated from high school in 2005. While there, she recorded the stories she heard about the war in her journal. Many, of course, were quite violent and shocking. But there's a scene at the beginning of the book -- taken directly from one of these accounts -- that's indicative of how the conflict affected every aspect of daily life in Croatia. Young Ana is sent to the corner store to get cigarettes for her father. Confusion reigns when the shopkeeper asks if she wants Serbian or Croatian cigarettes. She just wants the type of cigarette she's always bought. Who knows -- or cares -- where they're made? But in a time of war, even the simplest action has become political. 

I was surprised to learn that Novic didn't always want to be an author. In fact, she only began writing because she "accidentally enrolled" in a creative writing class in college. She wrote a short story inspired by the stories she heard in Croatia that the professor thought had the makings of a book. The story appears essentially intact at the end of the first part of the novel. It made me put down the book and cry. 

When I finished the Reader's Guide, I came to another section entitled "Sara Novic on What It's Like to be a Deaf Novelist." The opening reads:  "My first novel has recently become an audiobook to which I will not listen. The characters have been assigned voices and accents and inflections that I'll never hear. This is not a complaint, exactly...But to hold some disc...that contains a thing I made, transformed into a new thing I can no longer understand, is a predicament in which few writers find themselves."  Wow.  And that brings me to Novic's latest novel "True Biz."  

"True Biz" drops us into the life of Charlie, a Deaf girl who was implanted at a young age with a defective cochlear implant. Because parents are advised not to teach implanted Deaf kids sign language, she has had limited means of communicating while suffering the effects of the defective device. (The concern is that teaching the child ASL will diminish their aural development. It is a very hot topic in the Deaf community.)  When we meet Charlie, she is a student in a mainstream high school. Her grades are poor and she's acting out. Her parents have recently divorced, in large part over their disagreements about how to raise her. When her father is awarded primary custody, he enrolls Charlie in a Deaf K-12 boarding school. Her world radically changes as she -- and her father -- learn ASL and she lives and learns in the midst of people like her. 

"True Biz" is interspersed with pages
that teach readers about ASL. 

The novel also tells its story through the perspective of February, a hearing woman whose mother is deaf and lives with her. February is the headmistress of the boarding school, a mightily challenging job. She is eager for Charlie to have the chance to learn in a more hospitable environment but concerned about the uphill battle she faces. 

And so the scene is set for a story that introduced me to characters unlike any whom I've met before. It was fascinating to take a peek into these students' lives and the challenges facing them and their families. But if that sounds like a dry read about the obstacles facing the Deaf, think again. Kids will be kids no matter who they are. Suffice it to say that Charlie didn't settle down and become a model student once she entered boarding school. That girl can party and get into trouble with the best of them. 

"True Biz" educates readers -- in a totally non-preachy way -- about what it's like to be a Deaf child. It is truly eye opening. My copy of the book is full of post-it flags highlighting passages that blew me away. In fact, even the epigraph warranted a flag for its quotations. Aristotle is quoted as saying "Those who are born deaf all become senseless and incapable of reason." Alexander Graham Bell was apparently a notorious anti-Deaf bigot, calling Deaf people "defective" and preaching against intermarriages between Deaf and hearing individuals. Perhaps the kicker, though, was a quote from an NBS news piece in 2014 about manufacturers of cochlear implants devices continuing to market the product after learning that many were defective. There are no words. 

Sara Novic

I hope this description will entice you to pick up "True Biz." It's a unique read and perfect for book clubs. (I can envision a group working through some of the pages teaching ASL during their discussion. It's daunting!)  But if you're more of a movie person, a film is already in the works starring Millicent Simmonds as Charlie. You may know the young Deaf actress from "A Quiet Place."

In case you're wondering, Novic lost her hearing when she was in middle school. In a recent interview with the New York Times, she said, "Everything that I had learned about deafness, which was pretty much nothing, was a negative thing, a stigmatized thing. I assumed that I would become a broken version of my former self, and I tried to hide it for a really long time. My main goal in life was to pass or disappear." She had an interpreter who attended classes with her in college and graduate school. I'd love to know more about how that worked. Today she considers herself lucky to be able to occasionally tune out the world. For interviews with Novic about "Girl at War," click here and here. (The first link takes you to the interview with Julia Glass mentioned above.)  And to read an interview in which she talks about "True Biz" and being deaf, click here.  And for her webiste, click here. It is well worth digging into.