A review by casskrug
The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

3.25

the narrator of the hearing test is diagnosed with sudden deafness and then keeps a record of the ensuing year. she ruminates on silence, connections between people, and how we view the world. i found the writing style really promising and can understand the rachel cusk comparisons, but the book left something to be desired for me. callahan does an obscuring of character in this book that is really reminiscent of cusk’s more recent work, so maybe i needed a bit of separation from my two read throughs of parade before i got to this one. i just felt incredibly disconnected from the characters in a way that impeded my enjoyment of the book. i also think it would’ve benefitted from being read in one sitting due to the short length and more stream-of-consciousness style. a promising debut - i’m going to chalk up my lukewarm feelings to user error/wrong book at the wrong time. if you have an afternoon to get lost in the prose and ideas, i think you’d have a much better time than i did!