Louise Stern's stories are peopled with brave young girls, out to party, travel the world, go a little bit wild. The one thing that marks them out from their peers is that they have grown up deaf. They communicate with the outside world via a complicated mixture of sign language, lip-reading, note-scribbling, guesswork and instinct. Yet they are full of daring, ready for adventures that take them into unfamiliar places and strange, cock-eyed relationships with people whose actions they observe but never wholly understand.
It is this sense of dislocation from common experience that marks out Louise Stern's original voice. She is fully engaged in the world we recognize and share, but the way she observes it sets her apart. Her eyes are keen; she notices things we would never see; she is quick to judge, wary, suspicious and vulnerable. She experiences the world like a voyeur, always watching, yet able to retreat to an interior silence that nobody from the outside can ever reach.
Louise Stern's stories are peopled with brave young girls, out to party, travel the world, go a little bit wild. The one thing that marks them out from their peers is that they have grown up deaf. They communicate with the outside world via a complicated mixture of sign language, lip-reading, note-scribbling, guesswork and instinct. Yet they are full of daring, ready for adventures that take them into unfamiliar places and strange, cock-eyed relationships with people whose actions they observe but never wholly understand.
It is this sense of dislocation from common experience that marks out Louise Stern's original voice. She is fully engaged in the world we recognize and share, but the way she observes it sets her apart. Her eyes are keen; she notices things we would never see; she is quick to judge, wary, suspicious and vulnerable. She experiences the world like a voyeur, always watching, yet able to retreat to an interior silence that nobody from the outside can ever reach.
An extraordinary debut collection of stories, which reveal how the world looks when you're young, hip, wild and deaf.
Louise Stern grew up in Freemont, California, the fourth generation deaf in her family. She has lived in London for eight years. She works for Sam Taylor-Wood and is the founder and publisher of Maurice, a contemporary art magazine for children.
"Add "Chattering "to your to-read list!" --Allison Unfiltered
"""A sharp eye, a graceful writing ability and fascinating stories
that she has to tell." --The Collagist
"The collection may prove thought-provoking for hearing readers,
but for all the differences lack of hearing causes in the
characters' lives, especially striking are the similarities of
human emotions in dangerous, humiliating, and joyful circumstances.
This promising book appeals to short-fiction fans in general, to
those who appreciate slice-of-life stories in
particular."--Booklist
"engaging debut story collection"--Publishers Weekly
""Exactly what I want of fiction--I want it to take me places I
couldn't get to myself." --Tracy Chevalier, author, " Girl with a
Pearl Earring
""Stories that stay in your head long after you have finished
reading them . . ." Chattering" is utterly compelling and expresses
what it is like to be deaf--especially when you're also young and
reckless--in a way I have never read or understood before."
--"Observer
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