Ratings3
Average rating3.2
A young woman reorients her relationship to the world in the wake of sudden deafness in this mesmerizing debut novel for readers of Rachel Cusk, Clarice Lispector, and Fleur Jaeggy When the narrator of The Hearing Test, an artist in her late twenties, awakens one morning to a deep drone in her right ear, she is diagnosed with Sudden Deafness, but is offered no explanation for its cause. As the specter of total deafness looms, she keeps a record of her year—a score of estrangement and enchantment, of luck and loneliness, of the chance occurrences to which she becomes attuned—while living alone in a New York City studio apartment with her dog. Through a series of fleeting and often humorous encounters—with neighbors, an ex-lover, doctors, strangers, family members, faraway friends, and with the lives and works of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and philosophers—making meaning becomes a form of consolation and curiosity, a form of survival. At once a rumination on silence and a novel on seeing, The Hearing Test is a work of vitalizing intellect and playfulness which marks the arrival of a major new literary writer with a rare command of form, compression, and intent.
Reviews with the most likes.
Okay look, the thing is: this was beautiful, but it wasn't for me.
I saw this book in a Brooklyn bookshop on the local authors table, and I was enticed. Eliza Barry Callahan's writing is poetic with stunning rhythm. There were many moments when I thought to myself, “ah, yes. damn,” if you get what I mean. In another lifetime–one where I also adore writers like Ocean Vuong & James Joyce–I would love this.
Unfortunately, I am not into this type of writing (my loss). I almost marked The Hearing Test dnf, but it was too dreamy to give up on. I hope others can appreciate it the way it deserves.