Welcome friend! A Sign of Her Own is the poignant tale of a deaf young woman, Ellen Lark, finding a place in the world. Take a look at what the book is about and then we will dive into some of the aspects of the story:
A Sign of Her Own
Sarah Marsh | Goodreads
A mesmerizing tale of historical fiction that explores the legacy of the telephone centered on a young deaf woman, the prized student of Alexander Graham Bell.
Ellen Lark is faced with a dilemma. After losing her sense of hearing as a child, she’s learned from the best deaf school teachers, including Alexander Graham Bell. She is initially enamored by his charisma for teaching and unique mind for inventing, and becomes his close confidante. But after learning about Bell’s past, she has a new story to tell—that Bell has betrayed her and the deaf community in his work on the telephone.
When a rival inventor disputes his right to the patent, Bell asks Ellen to speak up publicly in his defense as his gifted former student. Ellen knows that this is her one opportunity to tell the true story—her story—but to do so will risk her engagement, her future prospects and will defy her mother’s last wish for her.
Inspired by journals kept by Alexander Graham Bell’s real deaf students, A Sign of Her Own casts new light on the inventor and the invention that would forever change how we communicate.
A Sign of Her Own – Book Review
Ellen’s perspective is rich in details and provides many themes to ponder. I loved how the story portrays the complexities of disability, independence, and human connection.
Pacing and Characters
At the beginning of the book, Ellen is known as someone amazing at lip-reading. As the story dives into her past, I got her perspective on what she thought of her skill as a lip-reader. The story is told in two timelines.
- The ‘present’ follows Ellen as an older woman, living in London. After many years, Bell has reached out to her to get her support in bringing the telephone to England.
- The chapters pertaining to the past start with how Ellen became deaf, her challenges of growing up and how she came to meet Bell in Boston.
I enjoyed the early childhood chapters in particular when Ellen, her sister and mom created ways to communicate once her disability was revealed. As Ellen grows older, she studies at different schools and with different tutors. Her mom has been a huge support for her but she understands that she can’t rely on her forever. I liked that she strived for independence and handled what came her way with grace.
I knew of Alexander Graham Bell from history lessons in connection to the telephone. A Sign of Her Own was educational in learning more about Bell and his interests in the deaf community. His father had developed Visual Speech where symbols would be used to signify the sounds that the reader has to make to say a word correctly. Bell is portrayed as a sleep-deprived, driven man who is a teacher but his heart is set on his inventions. I only got to know him through Ellen’s perspective and ultimately, he didn’t stand out as a fleshed out character to me.
Another important character in this story is Frank. He is deaf. She met him in her years at Boston when she was a pupil under Bell. Frank was a likeable character and it was easy to see how much the two of them enjoyed each other’s company. He has history with Bell as well and I found that connection intriguing. In the present timeline, Ellen’s connection to Frank is used as leverage by a lawyer to get her help to expose Bell.
Reflections on Speaking
A Sign of Her Own made me think about how I say words and the ways in which the alphabet sounds in each word. I have never given this much thought and really enjoyed this exercise in paying attention to how words sound and how they appear to someone who is lip-reading. Ellen’s go-to examples were ‘egg’ and ‘ache’. The book has many such pairs of words that Ellen’s enthusiasm in writing a paper about them was infectious.
Communication
The story offers commentary on the different school of thoughts and practices around the deaf community and how Ellen’s experience and perception of each changed as she grew older. I really liked the chapters where Ellen interacted with Frank and got to meet more people like her in her adult years. There was only a short period of time when she was around children like her and most of her studies with Bell were done in isolation. She lived and interacted with people who could speak and hear. In the present timeline in particular, after the loss of her mother, I could feel her loneliness at not having anyone to communicate in signs with.
Through the chapters set in the past, I got to know a lot about sign languages, its many variants based on region, the popularity of lip-reading and the stereotypes and difficulties of being deaf. Through Ellen’s perspective, I got personal insight into her struggles with how she wanted to communicate and how people in her life wanted her to communicate.
Visual Speech seemed like a solution created by people who could speak to force people who were deaf to communicate in a comfortable manner for the benefit of those who can hear and speak. Ellen tried very hard to learn Visual Speech and she was never be completely sure if she was doing it right because she couldn’t hear the sounds coming out of her mouth. The restrictions on her to not use sign language while learning this speech felt ridiculous to me. Many parts of this book were uncomfortable and the writing did a good job of highlighting the discomfort and making me sit with the situations.
Challenges
I felt this book was quite lengthy. The two timelines were not taken advantage of to the best of their ability. I was most interested in Ellen’s growth as that provided much needed context for what was unfolding in the present.
Having an approximate year for when the events were taking place would have been helpful to me. I was confused by which chapters belonged to which timeline. This may be a flaw of the advanced review copy which did not have a significant way to identify new chapters such as page breaks or any images and I hope is no longer an issue in the final edition.
About the Author: Sarah Marsh
‘This is a book about connections. Not the connections that Alexander Graham Bell hoped to forge with his telephone, but the connections that deaf people made before a widespread campaign to prevent and ban the use of sign language. I have loved spending time with my deaf characters, while exploring what it means to have a Deaf identity off the page. Deaf experience is incredibly varied, and this is just one story of many. I hope that you enjoy it.’
Sarah Marsh
Sarah Marsh was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish prize in 2019 and selected for the London Library Emerging Writers programme in 2020. A Sign of Her Own is her first novel, inspired by her experiences of growing up deaf and her family’s history of deafness. She lives in London.
I appreciated the disability representation and perspective. A Sign of Her Own offered new insights and was a thought-provoking read. Many thanks to Random Things Tours for giving me a chance to highlight this book on my blog in exchange for an honest review.
Check out other reviewers on the tour:
Another book with a deaf protagonist that I loved was The Dolphin House and if you liked this book, give that a shot!
Thanks for the blog tour support x