The Lip Reader Celebrates its Two-Year Anniversary
The Lip Reader, winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards 2022 Inspirational (Fiction}, was published two years ago on November 1, 2021 by Paper Angel Press. The reviews have been phenomenal. On Amazon, The Lip Reader is rated 4.6/5 with 38 reviews. Even more impressive are the reviews published on independent magazines like “Hearing Life” and “The Jewish Journal.”
In “Hearing Life” Summer 2023 issue, Larry Herbert wrote in his “Book Nook” column a very complimentary review of The Lip Reader. Herbert writes: Thal penned The Lip Reader as a poignant, semi-fictional memoir based on his relationship with the love of his life. It’s an emotional book, weaving sadness and joy into a powerful, uplifting saga of hardship and resilience. At the same time, it immerses the reader into the nuances of deaf/Deaf, Jewish and Iranian culture. (Click on the link to read the review in its entirety.)
Once The Lip Reader was published, I contacted Iranian-Jewish writer, Tabby Refael, to read and review my novel. It took her two years to get around to it, but patience and follow-up paid off when she wrote a two-page review, “For a Deaf Woman from Iran, Freedom Never Sounded so Good.” Tabby told me, “The Journal never published two-page reviews.” So, I’m very flattered they thought so highly of my book.
In her review, Rafael wrote, “The Lip Reader” tells the story of Zhila Shirazi, an Iranian Jew who, at the age of three, loses hearing in both of her ears as a result of meningitis. Readers soon learn that for Zhila and millions of others worldwide, deafness is often treated as a miserable liability. “In my country of Iran, a disability is a curse,” Zhila says early in the novel. She adds, “People with disabilities in mid-20th century Iran were considered tragic and pitiful.
Thal writes in the first person as Zhila, an impressive feat given that, as an Ashkenazi man, he manages to capture the voice of an Iranian Jewish woman with nuance and authenticity. But this achievement is rooted in experience: In real life, Zhila Shirazi (a fictional name) was Thal’s beloved partner of 16 years, a Tehran-born Jewish woman named Jila whom he met in 1999. In 2010, Jila was diagnosed with colon cancer. She passed away in 2015 at age 65, leaving Thal broken with heartache.
Incredibly, Zhila faces a problem that makes her deafness even more painful: At her family’s insistence, she is forced to keep her disability a secret from her teachers, friends and even her relatives. As a result, her unknowing teacher physically and verbally abuses Zhila in class, believing she is deliberately not listening to instruction. The teacher, Mrs. Gaidi (another fictional name) stabs Zhila in her head with a pencil and shouts, “That should wake you up, you stupid Jew, now get out of my class and don’t come back until you learn respect.”
Rafael’s review of The Lip Reader is also a commentary on its author and his relationship with the main character. Her article is extremely well written and worth your time.
If you haven’t read The Lip Reader you can find it in digital, hardcover, and paperback.
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3saycQR
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-lip-reader-michael-thal/1140378884?ean=9781953469847
Book Shop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-lip-reader-michael-thal/17747916?ean=9781953469847
When writing The Lip Reader, I put my heart and soul into a project that took four years to write and another year to edit and find a publisher. I’m extremely proud of the results. I know from the preponderance of feedback, you will enjoy it, too.. (Warning: Keep a box of tissues close by.)
