A Sign of Her Own

Marsh debuts with a middling historical about a Deaf woman in 1878 London who questions her efforts to assimilate with the hearing populace. As a young woman, Ellen Lark is an eager pupil of Alexander Graham Bell, whose Visible Speech system teaches Deaf people to speak via phonetic symbols. After meeting a Deaf man named Frank in a park, she introduces him to Bell’s system. Soon, though, Frank encourages Ellen to recognize the importance of sign language, and she pushes back on her family’s insistence that she only speak orally. When Bell’s patent rights to the telephone are disputed by Western Union, Ellen is forced to decide whether to stand by her former mentor or side with Frank, who happens to be working for Bell’s rival. Marsh skillfully captures Ellen’s drive to forge a meaningful life for herself and fellow Deaf people (“It wasn’t the voice that mattered: it was the connection”). Unfortunately, the narrative is flooded with an overabundance of historical details, which tend to throttle the momentum. This doesn’t quite take flight from its intriguing source material. Agent: Nelle Andrew, Rachel Mills Literary. (Feb.)