Deafening as Modern Classic: Frances Itani
Frances Itani wrote this wonderful piece about the evolution of her novel Deafening how the seven-year journey to its publication changed her forever.
I first set out to write Deafening after stumbling upon historical information about my own Deaf grandmother and her residential schooling. As I investigated further, I became interested in the historical period at the turn of the 20th century. It wasn’t long before I knew I would be writing a book about a young Deaf woman. I began to ask myself the question, “What must life have been like for a Deaf child, given the social and cultural milieu of the time?” I also became interested in the various methods of education of Deaf children and that particular history.
The more I read, the more the novel grew in my imagination. My grandmother died in 1987, and though I had known her closely and well, she’d never discussed her schooling. I began to read newspapers printed at the residential school she had attended in Belleville, Ontario. The paper at the time was called The Canadian Mute, later changed to The Canadian. The 1870 school, known as The Ontario Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, experienced name changes as well, notably dropping the word “Dumb.” At present, it is The Sir James Whitney School for the Deaf.
The book is not about my grandmother, though it was written with a good deal of love. It is set in her time because that period captured my imagination. The characters are invented. I made the decision to set the book in real towns and cities, and this involved historical research. In order to tell part of my story from the point of view of Grania, a Deaf person, I also decided to study American Sign Language. One of the first signs I learned was “family.” I was welcomed into the community. Deaf people were extremely generous in their willingness to help.
While I was studying six levels of American Sign Language, I volunteered at the Ottawa Deaf Centre. I travelled to Deseronto and Belleville and uncovered archival history. When I reached 1914 in my newspaper reading, I realized that I would have to include the First World War. Not only were countries affected on a global scale, the war influenced the life of every Deaf child at the school. Fathers, brothers, uncles and teachers went off to fight; most news was war related. I visited the battlefields at the Western Front, and this became a journey of equal importance. I spent an extra year reading letters, telegrams, histories and journals at the Archives of the Canadian War Museum and elsewhere. I watched documentaries, attended lectures and interviewed veterans. In the meantime, although my Sign Language skills were far from perfect, I had begun to interview Deaf friends and colleagues. My knowledge was growing.
When it was time to push the research aside and tell the layered story that became Deafening, I focussed thematically on love in its many guises: between grandparent and child, between sisters, partners, war buddies, parents, parent and child, teacher and child, school friends, etc. I contemplated “hope and despair” and “sound and silence.” Every one of Grania’s scenes had to be imagined visually, using every sense except hearing. I always work organically, out of my own material, and never have an overall plan, though the thematic images are there, lurking behind the scenes.
Language was my vehicle. I learned the expressions of the period while I read its history. I wrote about the loss of language through illness and trauma, about air-writing, lip-reading, finger-spelling, invented language, printed language when Grania began to read, the language of correspondence — sent and unsent. I wrote about the rote method while Grania learned to use voice. I tried to create the language of breath and song; I gave Jim the ability to sing because I knew Grania would never hear his songs — just as he would never fully understand her silence. I created a private, intimate language between them. I used the emotional language of war and of separation, medical language from the battlefields, censorship and propaganda, and the nonsense language of a medieval poem chanted by Jim when he was in extreme danger. Throughout this time, I was personally experiencing the frustrations of communicating in the visual-gestural language that is Sign. I was trying to comprehend the complicated nuances of the languages of the Deaf.
I loved writing this book and the challenges that came with its creation. I loved the people I met and the travels I undertook. The seven-year journey, from onset to publication, changed me forever.
Frances Itani’s Deafening arrives in its Modern Classic edition this May.
