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WHAT'S THAT PIG OUTDOORS?: A MEMOIR OF DEAFNESS
By
Henry Kisor. With a new a new epilogue by the author. Foreword by
Walker Percy. University of Illinois Press, published August 22, 2010.
"A liberating document--and a heck of a good read." --Booklist
"May well become an American classic." --New York Times
"Genial and moving, sharp and witty." --Publishers Weekly
"I love this book. It is witty, profound, and unself-pitying. It is the best account of growing up deaf since David Wright's Deafness."
--Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat
Henry Kisor lost his hearing at age three to meningitis and
encephalitis but went on to excel in the most verbal of professions as
a literary journalist. This new and expanded edition of Kisor's
engrossing memoir recounts his life as a deaf person in a hearing world
and addresses heartening changes over the last two decades due to the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and advancements in cochlear
implants and modes of communication.
Kisor tells of his parents' drive to raise him as a member of the
hearing and speaking world by teaching him effective lip-reading skills
at a young age and encouraging him to communicate with his hearing
peers. With humor and much candor, he narrates his time as the only
deaf student at Trinity College in Connecticut and then as a graduate
student at Northwestern University, as well as his successful career as
the book review editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily
News. Life without hearing, Kisor says, has been fine and fulfilling.
Widely praised in popular media and academic journals when it was first
published in 1990, What's That Pig Outdoors? opened new conversations
about the deaf. Bringing those conversations into the twenty-first
century, Kisor updates the continuing disagreements between those who
advocate sign language and those who practice speech and lip-reading,
discusses the increased acceptance of deaf people's abilities and
idiosyncrasies, and considers technological advancements such as
blogging, instant messaging, and hand-held mobile devices that have
enabled deaf people to communicate with the hearing world on its own
terms.
Henry Kisor is a retired book review editor and literary columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. He is the author of Zephyr: Tracking a Dream Across America and Flight of the Gin Fizz: Midlife at 4,500 Feet, as well as three mystery novels, Season's Revenge, A Venture into Murder, and Cache of Corpses.
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