The Silents

Called the Silents by some, and the Shtimmers (its Yiddish equivalent) by others, deaf Joe and Ruthie Herzberg were simply mother and father to Abrams and her sister, Adelaide. In part, this is a straightforward story of growing up during the Depression and WWII. It's also a nice, but unremarkable story of a child discovering the difference between the image and the reality of her parents, as when Abrams discovers that her quick-tempered father had been a hobo, a boxer and a bootlegger. But much rarer and hence more affecting, are the scenes that are unique to a hearing child of deaf parents. These give insights into a different normalcy. Abrams describes how her parents tried to provide her and her sister a ""regular"" childhood by having hearing friends and relatives come to speak to them while they were young; and she recalls her mother's habit of calling out, when the doorbell-activated light flashed, ""Who is it?"" even though she would never hear the answer. There was a crisis, when Abrams was first given a radio and her father feared it as an activity that would divide the household into hearing and not. At least until he discovered that the fights were broadcast, and, surrounded by his deaf friends, he had the two girls sign and act out the parts of the contenders. Strangely, what stand out most, are the sounds: the knockings of a card player signaling a pass; the hmn, hmn that is Abrams's father's laugh; her mother's crying as she grapples with the additional hurdle of blindness; the whoops, groans and moans in a large, otherwise silent party. (July)