The Lip Reader: A Story About Deafness, Finds a Publisher

After my wife, Jila, died from cancer, a little more than six years ago, I was lost and devastated, but at her gravesite I had made a promise that I would write a book about her extraordinary life. After a long and painful period of mourning, I decided it was time to share her with the world and began to document and organize all the stories she had related to me about growing up deaf and Jewish in Iran. She had a difficult life, but her fearlessness and determination, from a very young age, formed her unequivocal outlook on life, making her a positive and encouraging force. I wanted people to be touched by her love as I was. 

The Lip Reader took me four years to write but helped me through the grieving process immensely. I had written five previous books, all in the young reader’s genre, but this one was for adults. The story begins with young Zhila (my wife’s character) asking her parents for hearing aids after a particularly traumatic event at school, but they refuse. In late 1950s Iran, it was dangerous to make public that your child had a disability. Blind, deaf, and mentally challenged children were often sterilized so that the genetic defect would end with them. Disability was accompanied by danger, brought about by a social stigma, seen as “imperfection” and Zhila’s parents were cautious not to reveal that their daughter was deaf and risk the consequences. A hearing aid would clearly point to disability and they could not take that chance.

     

Zhila spent her early life in Iran depending heavily on lip reading to hide her deafness and only purchased hearing aids as an adult after receiving her first paycheck working as a geologist. After the 1978 Islamic Revolution, the story moves to California when Zhila is 35. This account of her life relates the exceptional person she was, continuing to overcome a multitude of challenges while establishing a new life filled with the constant barriers that come with learning a new language and culture much less doing it with a disability. Lip reading is a very difficult skill to learn, but amazingly she mastered it with her adopted tongue almost as equally well as her native Farsi. Over time, she meets each challenge with grace and as she approaches her fiftieth year, she is rewarded with the gift of meeting her soulmate, Mickey Daniels. 
     

Once I finished writing her life story, I needed to find a good editor for that critical objective eye. It is a daunting undertaking to trust your work to the hands of someone who is hired to change it. It is like leaving your new baby in the care of someone else the first time you leave the house. I asked Jan Seeley if she knew of an editor that also had a background and an understanding of deafness. Coincidentally, she disclosed her own editing resume, and I felt comfortable hiring her for the job. She artfully eliminated the “fat” and unnecessary details while keeping the theme focused through to its dramatic conclusion. 

     

After the editing was complete, I began the search for an agent/publisher sending the synopsis of the novel to pique their interest with the hope they would request the entire manuscript. I heard back from two publishers, one responded within 24 hours requesting the entire manuscript to read. That same day, the editor from Paper Angel Press, after having had my manuscript for three months responded with this: The Lip Reader is so vivid, so earnest, so honest, so full of love and luminous intelligence, so lacking in mean spirit even as it treats some of the deepest horrors of life with total clarity and resolution. I’m not ashamed to say that even this much-scarred, stoical woman is weeping freely. The world must have this book. 
     

Her words brought tears to my eyes realizing how perfectly she understood Zhila and how important her life story was to share. I signed a contract with them with the promise that The Lip Reader would be published no later than January 2022. Now with the assurance that the life of this very precious woman will be shared with the world, I feel I can officially end my mourning and begin to celebrate her. She deserves this recognition, and perhaps her legacy will provide inspiration and guidance for those who have their own challenges to overcome.