A book recommendation, sort of

I’m almost through reading Marlee Matlin’s I’ll Scream Later and for the most part, enjoying it. In my field, it’s really important to try to understand the folks I serve and I thought a deaf actor’s autobiography would offer a number of important insights. I was right.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not the best book or even the best autobiography I’ve ever read. Ole Marlee’s pretty taken with herself, offering up uncountable long-winded, sycophantic rants from friends and colleagues about how beautiful, charming, genuine, and professional she is. I’ll give her those, since she’s not a writer by trade (and sorry to say, neither apparently is Betsy Sharkey, her ghost on this project). She jumps back and forth without regard to continuity or flow. I could do without the frequent detailed references to her sex life, too, but that might just be me.

My point here is that it’s not a book I would recommend as a good read. But I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to understand a bit about living with limitations in general and the deaf world, in particular.

Just don’t cherry-pick. If you pick up this book, read the whole thing. Her efforts to build a life that includes being deaf in a hearing world aren’t confined to a special chapter or occasional footnotes, because they’re not so confined in her life. Her deafness is part of the fabric and flavor of her life and in the book as in her life, it’s inextricable.

Ironically, I suppose it’s the fact that Marlee and her collaborator didn’t create great  literature here that makes it a valuable read. It’s honest, if frequently overblown, and it offers a window into a life well lived in spite of obstacles.  Marlee Matlin is a force of nature who has alternately  inspired and outraged both the deaf community and the hearing world. For reasons that frequently say more about the world than about Marlee.

I usually only recommend books that stand on their own as… well, books. So let me be clear, here. I recommend you read this book simply because you’ll learn from it. I know I did.