My work on Crossing the Divide: Representations of Deafness in Biography (CH, Sep’07, 45-0118) began after discovery of correspondence between the illustrious deaf-blind American Helen Keller (1880-1968) and Yvonne Pitrois (1880-1937), her less-known French counterpart.  The two knew and greatly admired one another.  It wasn’t until Keller read Pitrois’ biography of her that they had a significant disagreement. 

Stung by Pitrois’ negative characterization of her performances with Anne Sullivan on the vaudeville stage, Keller defended her performances as a way for a deaf person to earn her living independently and to instruct hearing people about disability issues.

How does a disabled person best cross the cultural divide between herself and the hearing “other”? This was a significant question that I thought worth exploring.

I hoped, in the first chapter, to encourage reflection on the art of biography; my intention was primarily to begin to craft a definition of what deaf biography was and might become, and to show the uniqueness of this developing genre within the context of the “norms” of hearing biography, so beautifully defined by Maurois and Edel, among others.  Of greater import is chapter 6, “In Deaf Hands.”

Concerning his assertion that I consulted no biographical theory beyond Edel’s (1984), I call to attention to four sources—Thomas Couser’s Recovering Bodies, Carolyn Heilbrun’s Women’s Lives, Harry G. Lang and Bonnie-Meath-Lang’s Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences, and Carol Padden and Tom Humphries’ Deaf in America.  Many others are included in my bibliography.

The deaf community is coming into its own. In the next decade, many more accounts by and about the deaf will appear and encourage conversation and debate.  I offer my study in the spirit of its being a first step in this direction. For this reason, I believe it has earned a place in college and university libraries.

Rachel M. Hartig, Ph.D.
Gallaudet University

The Reviewer Responses:

I should have written “shows little evidence,” not “shows no evidence.”   I regret if my poor choice of words misrepresented the book under review.

Dr. Carl Rollyson
Bernard M. Baruch College, CUNY