Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC, I'm Alison Stewart. A new novel set at a high school for deaf students highlights the diversity of deaf culture in America through the stories of three protagonists. There's Charlie, a deaf teen who has a cochlear implant. When she was young, her parents encouraged Charlie to learn spoken English rather than ASL. After years of struggling in school, Charlie gets a chance to start over at the River Valley School for the Deaf. The transition isn't easy. Charlie is learning ASL for the first time when most of her peers are already fluent, fitting in at her new school is hard, and that is where Austin comes in.

Austin is the product in a multigenerational deaf family, a fluid signer, the golden boy at school. After being assigned to help Charlie adjust, the two quickly form a bond. Overseeing the school is February a CODA child of deaf adults. She is the headmistress of the River Valley School and she is facing a crisis. The school is losing funding and will close when the year ends. The novel is titled True Biz, and it's written by Sara Novic, herself a deaf author, educator, and advocate. Publishers Weekly calls the novel brilliant, and Reese Witherspoon agrees. She selected it for her book club this month. Sara Novic joins me now. Hi, Sara.

Sara Novic: Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to let you know we are also recording a video of this conversation that will be available to watch on YouTube. You can find it embedded in the segment page on our website. There will also be a full transcript and closed captioning available and we're joined by interpreter Geneare Lowry so the interview will be available in ASL. Sara, the title of the book is something that's well known in the deaf community. Will you please share what True Biz means?

Sara Novic: Sure, most definitely. True Biz is an ASL idiom. It's a very popular ASL idiom which has a few different multiple meanings. For example, it could mean serious, it could mean I'm not joking about this, it could mean real talk, to name a few. For me, it was important to title this book with something that had strong ties to the deaf community as an idiom. There's not one direct translation into English. This book, I guess, you could say is real talk from a deaf perspective and about the deaf experience.

Alison Stewart: I was going to ask, what do you think needs-- what do we really have to have conversation, some real talk about? What are some of the themes in the book that you wanted to make sure that there was real talk about it?

Sara Novic: Many, many, many things. [chuckles] Really, the first and basic thing would be that deaf culture itself is a culture. It is its own culture and our language is so rich, and it's cherished, so diverse. There's a lot of joy in the deaf experience. I think a lot of times we talk about our struggles for obvious reasons but also, I wanted to share the strengths of the community too. That's one thing for you. [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: Well, we'll go from there. I do want to talk about the quotes at the beginning of the book, and then we'll talk about the characters because the characters are really fun. You begin the book with three quotes one from Aristotle, who said deaf people become "senseless and incapable of reason". One from Alexander Graham Bell, who called deaf people defective, and one from an NBC news report about a company who sold defective cochlear implants to kids and adults for years. What did you want to communicate by placing these three quotes in a row on the same page?

Sara Novic: Yes, I honestly I wanted to show and give more of a picture on the struggle, that type of experience that is so common that people do go through. This is something that's been going on for thousands of years that deaf people have experienced this type of misunderstanding, really, of our experience. One thing about this book, I will say that the main character, Charlie, does have a cochlear implant, and so I think a lot of people focus on the technology. There's a debate regarding the technology. In actuality, I wanted to show more that deaf people have to deal with the constant misunderstandings of the deaf experience.

That is something that is common. It's something that everyone in society has to deal with at some point in their life being deaf. Choosing those quotes showed those various perspectives.

Alison Stewart: My guest is author Sara Novic, we're talking about her new novel, True Biz. All right, let's talk about our protagonist Charlie, a deaf student, as you mentioned, got a cochlear implant at a young age not taught ASL. Here's what you write about this from Charlie's perspective. The educational term for her was oral failure, which from what Charlie could tell basically meant she sounded stupid when she talked.

Charlie wasn't stupid, she just had to learn everything herself and in an environment not at all conducive to learning. The public school classroom. Endless tumult of squeaking furniture, student chatter, teachers spewing lessons with their backs to the class as they wrote on the board, really she thought the fact that she could work out about 60% of what was going on with the roboear, maybe more with some good lip reading was impressive, but in school, 60% was still a D. That's from the novel True Biz.

How has this choice made by her parents affected Charlie's experience in the world and maybe even more importantly, how she feels about herself?

Sara Novic: With Charlie and her experience in the world, part of it is not typical because her cochlear implant is physically broken. It is actually broken and you do see that later in the book, but at the same time her experiences also are a little more common in some ways because of looking at the levels of success that deaf people have with assistive technology varies. It's all over the spectrum. Most parents do not learn sign language for their deaf children. There are only 8% that do. 8% of parents having a conversation with their child in sign language and so in that way, Charlie does have a very typical experience.

Alison Stewart: Because her mother specifically really, I don't know what the right way to put this, doesn't seem to want to deal with Charlie or even Charlie's needs.

Sara Novic: I think her mom has a lot of fear and that fear comes from the way society understands deafness as a whole. Charlie's mom was told by the doctor not to sign with her. I think she was doing what she thought was best for her. Thought she was doing the right thing and it becomes clear that it was really wrong but also with her personality, there are personality clashes as well which is the universal teenage experience as well. That's something anyone can relate to that happens a lot in the book.

Alison Stewart: When Charlie starts to become more fluent in ASL, what opens up for her?

Sara Novic: Everything. [chuckles] Everything. Having friends you can talk with. I think oftentimes we talk about language access relating to education and language acquisition from a mental health perspective and that kind of thing, but we don't talk enough about the socio-emotional part. As deaf people we're all still human and we all still need that social and emotional access, but Charlie did not have that access so it really opened up access to being a human, having equality in that way, making friends participating in afterschool activities, doing those things that was new for her.

Alison Stewart: Sara, you tweeted recently, "Cannot wait for the day someone hires me to write a piece about how the practice of withholding ASL from deaf kids in the US stems directly from the white supremacist movement, because, man, are those receipts ugly and, whoo baby, do some people need to see them." Can you draw that link for us? Make that link?

Sara Novic: A lot of oral education, I'll start there, and philosophy in the United States comes from the Alexander Graham Bell Association and his idea I think people understood his philosophy as an educational idea, but in reality his goal was not related to education whatsoever. His goal was to have everyone speaking English, everyone so not only deaf individuals, but in the broader public and was really obsessed with the idea of American culture. That's why I said white supremacist.

He was really obsessed with that idea of really making sure that English was primary spoken in all schools. He was against immigration. He was against them speaking their own language too. We see a really strong connection between Alexander Graham Bell and the eugenics movement in the US as well, which was obviously related to the attempt to remove individuals with disabilities and Deaf people are one of them, but to remove them from society.

Alison Stewart: My guess is Sara Novic, the name of her novel is True Biz. Let's talk about the character of Austin. I found Austin so interesting. He is a child of privilege. He's described from a fifth-generation, multi-generational deaf family. He's the golden boy at the school, the way people describe him is like he's the fifth generation from like the Mayflower or something. What did you want to examine about privilege and its different forms?

Sara Novic: Yes, the character Austin, I actually started writing Austin because I thought it would be funny if I created a character and family situation where people would freak out about the birth of a hearing baby in the same way that people tend to freak out about the birth of a deaf baby in our world. That's how I started creating that character.

Alison Stewart: Let me interrupt for one second. Just so our listeners know that in Austin's family while he's at school, his mother's pregnant and gives birth and the babies is hearing just so we catch everybody up.

Sara Novic: Yes, yes, thank you so much. Also through Austin's character, I wanted to express more the way that language access gave him more of a privilege in the deaf community, but many deaf people who are from generational deaf family do have that privilege and there can be dissension in the deaf community from that and because of that privilege because the deaf world does have similarities to the hearing worlds, we do have cliques, there's cliques, there's petty arguments, things that blow up out of proportion. I wanted to show those similarities as well in that book too from that teenage experience.

Alison Stewart: There's February the headmistress of River Valley School, who is a child of deaf adults. What does she see as her role in preserving and continuing the deaf community and culture?

Sara Novic: I think February is in a really interesting position in her life, just because she's in between everything. She's in between everything from the deaf world and the hearing world. She straddles in between those worlds, and the deaf world is her home. That's where she feels most at home, but at the same time, if she were to go out, and other people see her as an entirely hearing person, and would never think that she belonged to a deaf world. She's always code-switching.

I think because of that, she does feel like she has something to prove to the community, but also to herself too, and to keep that going.

Alison Stewart: Sara, you've written about the fact that your own hearing loss was progressive, you were educated in spoken English before being taught ASL. What perspective do you have from that experience that you wanted to explore in this book?

Sara Novic: I think with that experience I do feel more connected to the character of Charlie because I do know that experience, I had seen that experience. Growing up in a mainstream school, I struggled to pass. I just wanted to get through and get by. I didn't know any other deaf people either for a long time. When I finally understood myself, that was when I was able to understand that I was not a broken version of a hearing person, that I was my own person, but I had a community that I belonged to, but for the longest time, I didn't know that, I didn't consider myself whole.

I think that that was an important thing for Charlie to learn as well. That was something I wanted to show people too that ASL is not only about ease of communication, and clarity, those are true, to be sure, but it's also about understanding one's identity, and mode of expression, and understanding oneself as a whole person, a whole being.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Sara Novic, the name of her novel is True Biz. The novel has such an interesting structure because we've got the action, these three protagonists, not giving anything away at the beginning of the book, the kids go missing and the headmistress has to deal with it, parents press, all that. Also included in the book are these really interesting interstitials about ASL and about different parts of deaf culture. About the grammar of ASL. Did you always know you were going to write the book this way?

Sara Novic: No, I certainly did not. I never knew anything. [chuckles] I do wish I could be the kind of writer who plans but I'm not. When I did start writing this book, I did kind of resist the idea that I needed to expound and explain a bit more on deaf culture. I wanted my deaf characters to stand on their own two feet and do whatever they wanted. As I was writing, I realized that most of the world would need more information. They would need more information if I wanted them to completely relate to these characters and understand more of their way of thinking and their perspective.

I had that opportunity through Charlie and through setting up a deaf residential school in my book to have that educational message as one part of it, which was a bit separate from the message itself but those were able to go concurrently through the writing. With Charlie's experience, she's a guide through deaf culture as well which works out great.

Alison Stewart: Yes. She becomes really stuck on the fact that there seems to be no sign for the verb to be. There's also an interesting conflict between the way a Black student signs with a Black American sign language. I hope I'm saying that right. That's an interesting conflict that comes up. I think that's interesting. I don't know if this is a question I just was like, "Wow, that's extremely interesting. I didn't know about that."

Sara Novic: Yes. Oh no. Yes. Many people wouldn't know. Yes but that was part of it too. That was part of my goal for this book was wanting people to see not just one deaf person, one deaf experience but seeing that through multiple lenses of multiple backgrounds because it is true to life in that way, multiple races, multiple backgrounds like that. It all converges into one language and one community.

Alison Stewart: One thing I did know and I was very excited to see it in the book is the tie between ASL and Martha's Vineyard. My family's been there forever. I can remember very, very young knowing about the deaf community on Martha's Vineyard. I was wondering if you would share with our audience how ASL as we know is partially a product of a community on Martha's Vineyard.

Sara Novic: Cool. Yes, that's very cool. Back in the day, let's think here, I'd say basically when people had arrived from some parts of England so it was a part of England called Kent to be specific. People had arrived to Martha's Vineyard from Kent together and they had set up everything they needed in order to live. In that generation, they happened to have a high rate of deaf individuals within that community. Also at that time, it was very tough to travel between Martha's vineyard and the mainland.

There was quite a bit of deaf people within that community. There wasn't a lot of diversity as far as genetics go. That's how it continued to grow. I think at that time, I think it was something like one in 5,000 people in America were deaf, but on Martha's vineyard, it was one in 155. That was a huge difference, stark contrast. Everyone on the island signed and they created their own sign language to be able to relate also to the language that they brought from England. Then it transformed to become more specifically Martha's Vineyard sign language.

On the island, there were deaf and hearing individuals but everyone had signed. Everyone knew how to sign. Everyone worked together. There was no dissension about deafness or anything like that because everyone knew the same language. A lot of people look at Martha's vineyard and say that's proof that if people use sign language, deafness is not really a disability. With everyone signing together and understanding one another, what is there to lose? Setting up the first deaf school that was done in Connecticut and a lot of people started to go there.

That community had slowly withered away on Martha's Vineyard, and there was a lot of additions of signed languages, such as French sign language along with Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, along with people from other backgrounds were using home signs. A lot of that merging happened at that time which has created ASL which is what we use today.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Sara Novic the name of her novel is True Biz. I want to save this question for the end, because it's the most obvious one. A lot of people are thinking more about deaf culture after CODA won best picture at the Oscars. I can understand you would have nuanced feelings about it. What is something about this film's success that makes you feel hopeful, and what's something about the film success that you think needs to be analyzed perhaps a little more critically?

Sara Novic: Yes. Oh my word, the obvious thing has to be just how amazing our deaf performers are. They were amazing, absolutely. Troy really carried that movie, and was just so funny, oh my word. I love to watch him work. I think all the deaf performers were amazing. It is my hope that this continues to open doors for more deaf actors, more deaf performers. One thing I think might be a good next step would be having more deaf writers, more deaf producers behind the camera. I think that that is one of the more frustrating things that a lot of deaf people do experience, and what they felt about that movie.

They felt that the movie still had a hearing-centric perspective. The main character is still a hearing person. The story is still about a hearing person, and explain things for a hearing audience. I think my next hope in the future would be to see more of a full deaf perspective and story as well.

Alison Stewart: The name of the novel is True Biz. It is a great read. It is by Sara Novic. Sara, thank you so much for being with us. Genaere, our interpreter thank you so much as well.

Sara Novic: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It was really fun.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, I want to remind you again that we have recorded a video of this conversation. It will be available to watch on YouTube. You can find it embedded in the segment page on our website. There will be also a full transcript and closed captioning available. This is All Of It.

[00:22:55] [END OF AUDIO]

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.