I'm of two minds about this book. On the one hand, Ruth writes the way her parents speak; with the syntax and phrasing of the Deaf. The grammar cop in me rebelled all the way through the book. On the other hand, the story was so interesting I couldn't put it down. I read it in waiting rooms, in the car (not while driving), in every spare minute over the day and a half it took me to finish it. When Ruth told her story, the book was very, very good. When she slipped off into her thoughts and feelings, she got so poetic that I couldn't understand what she was saying. The narration skips back and forth along the timeline a lot as she tells of her life as the hearing child of deaf parents, both of her parents' lives as deaf children of hearing parents, and brief dips into her grandparents' lives as parents of deaf children. Ruth also touches on the awful schooling for the deaf in the early 20th century, her own trouble accepting sound and music, and some bits I hadn't expected about being both deaf and Jewish.

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In Silence is the story of a Hearing child born to Deaf parents and how she grew up - not belonging to either world very successfully. Her devotion to her parents is evident and her pride in their lives also shines through. It is a worthy read as it brings to light the unique experiences of a child living in two worlds - and worlds that are not necessarily kind to each other.

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A story of growing up hearing in a deaf world. The struggle to learn the language of the hearing. The childhood embarrassment of signing. The eventual acceptance of the beauty of the language of the hands. Ruth learned from her father to hear the earth, to hear the colors, to hear the ocean, to hear sounds which the non-deaf do not hear. There are some things which words cannot express. But the hands can. One of the most beautifully written books I have ever read.

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