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leigh_ann_15_deaf's review
3.0
The last story in this collection, "Song for the Deaf," features Marietta, a deaf woman who is the object of two men's desires.
When the reader is first introduced to her, she is a girl fighting boredom as an angel-voiced boy (Antonio) performs an opera. She’s new to town, and homeschooled.
Years later, she’s working at her parents’ store and Antonio tries to woo her with song, despite knowing she is deaf, since he believes his voice might miraculously break through to her. He stands outside her bedroom window and serenades her relentlessly. The main character, Jeremy, who works as a police officer, is trying to get Antonio to leave.
Marietta just happens to turn on her light and look out the window while Antonio is belting his song, and everyone believes a miracle happened.
She eventually marries Jeremy, after he takes a couple of sign language classes. (That's nice and all, but really? Like, if Jeremy loved her all this time, why didn't he take the sign language classes before? You know?)
She tells him that that might she had heard the broken whistle he blew, not Antonio’s opera, and Jeremy admits to the reader she was probably lying out of love.
She’s barely in the story, only having any kind of agency or personality at the very end. Jeremy falls in love with her because she doesn’t fall in love with Antonio’s voice; Antonio falls in love with her because she isn’t paying attention to him and he’s desperate for all eyes and ears on him.
Like. Okay.
When the reader is first introduced to her, she is a girl fighting boredom as an angel-voiced boy (Antonio) performs an opera. She’s new to town, and homeschooled.
Years later, she’s working at her parents’ store and Antonio tries to woo her with song, despite knowing she is deaf, since he believes his voice might miraculously break through to her. He stands outside her bedroom window and serenades her relentlessly. The main character, Jeremy, who works as a police officer, is trying to get Antonio to leave.
Marietta just happens to turn on her light and look out the window while Antonio is belting his song, and everyone believes a miracle happened.
She eventually marries Jeremy, after he takes a couple of sign language classes. (That's nice and all, but really? Like, if Jeremy loved her all this time, why didn't he take the sign language classes before? You know?)
She tells him that that might she had heard the broken whistle he blew, not Antonio’s opera, and Jeremy admits to the reader she was probably lying out of love.
She’s barely in the story, only having any kind of agency or personality at the very end. Jeremy falls in love with her because she doesn’t fall in love with Antonio’s voice; Antonio falls in love with her because she isn’t paying attention to him and he’s desperate for all eyes and ears on him.
Like. Okay.
Deaf reader reviewing books with deaf characters. This book is listed on my ranked list of books with deaf characters: https://slacowan.com/2023/01/14/ranked-deaf-characters-in-fiction.
baroque's review
5.0
Fleming’s prose is akin to George Saunders both in oddball subject matter and satiric wit; as the cover implies, there is plenty of magical realism to be found in Fleming’s works. Burrow Press has done a wonderful job presenting his gorgeous book, though I do wonder if they chose the best story to open with. Some of the shorts are not always successful in taking an experimental premise and running with it, but others succeed ten-fold, presenting plenty of heart, intelligence, and comedy along the way. All of his works have plenty of entertainment value, but if you’re only looking to read a few, some of these works stand far above the others.
My personal favorite, “Weighing of the Heart”, tells the story of a bond between a truck driver and a girl who can’t stop from floating a “clean three inches over the gravel.” “A Charmed Life” follows a boy’s entire life in the span of ten short pages with a clever twist at the end. “Xenophilia” is by far the most oddball story, presenting us with several points of view all revolving around an alien that has sat for dinner at “the restaurant”; this one had me laughing out loud throughout. And of course, the cover story, “Songs for the Deaf”, is a wonderful tale of jealousy and misplaced ambition.
My personal favorite, “Weighing of the Heart”, tells the story of a bond between a truck driver and a girl who can’t stop from floating a “clean three inches over the gravel.” “A Charmed Life” follows a boy’s entire life in the span of ten short pages with a clever twist at the end. “Xenophilia” is by far the most oddball story, presenting us with several points of view all revolving around an alien that has sat for dinner at “the restaurant”; this one had me laughing out loud throughout. And of course, the cover story, “Songs for the Deaf”, is a wonderful tale of jealousy and misplaced ambition.
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