Deaf Book Review
Melinda Kimball
Middle school psychology
November 15, 2014 Book Review: Mean Little Deaf Queer Terry Galloway
Mean Little Deaf Queer, is set in the 1960’s, right after some of the world’s worst wars. Their household was one of many games, and tense feelings. Her mother and sisters teamed up against her, while her father stood off the side and always had ‘more important things to do.’ Terry’s family is a military family and due to her father’s status, they moved around a lot, and her story begins after she moved from Stuttgart,
Germany, to Fort Hood, Texas in 1959.
At around the age of 8, Terry, remembers showing symptoms of deafness.
Terry’s deafness was thought to have been from a medicine called, Mycin. This medicine was commonly used in European hospitals for treating kidney infections. It was given to her mother during pregnancy and it is believed that this medicine caused the start to Terry’s deafness. Even though the doctors knew the risk, they didn’t bother to tell the family, because back then, doctors didn’t have many options for treating kidney infections within the womb. As she grew up, Terry, was an ardent chatterbox with such and adult rapidfire vocabulary that one of her German neighbors in Stuttgart, mistook her for a dwarf.
(Chapter 1) (yikes!) By the age of seven, she became silent at the dinner table. Her
1
mother and sister, never worried about this change, and took Terry’s, silence as a ‘gift’ to their ears. Terry says “(the) sounds had started disappearing all around me. I didn’t know where to, and I didn’t think to ask...not then, and not the handful of years later when started having my ‘dreams’ about who I really was.” (Chapter 1) This is where her adventure begins.
Terry, began to experience funny dreams. Dreams where she was flying higher than the sky and she would look down at herself and she wouldn’t see the girl she was born as. These dreams told about, Terry’s, questioning, sexual
Middle school psychology
November 15, 2014 Book Review: Mean Little Deaf Queer Terry Galloway
Mean Little Deaf Queer, is set in the 1960’s, right after some of the world’s worst wars. Their household was one of many games, and tense feelings. Her mother and sisters teamed up against her, while her father stood off the side and always had ‘more important things to do.’ Terry’s family is a military family and due to her father’s status, they moved around a lot, and her story begins after she moved from Stuttgart,
Germany, to Fort Hood, Texas in 1959.
At around the age of 8, Terry, remembers showing symptoms of deafness.
Terry’s deafness was thought to have been from a medicine called, Mycin. This medicine was commonly used in European hospitals for treating kidney infections. It was given to her mother during pregnancy and it is believed that this medicine caused the start to Terry’s deafness. Even though the doctors knew the risk, they didn’t bother to tell the family, because back then, doctors didn’t have many options for treating kidney infections within the womb. As she grew up, Terry, was an ardent chatterbox with such and adult rapidfire vocabulary that one of her German neighbors in Stuttgart, mistook her for a dwarf.
(Chapter 1) (yikes!) By the age of seven, she became silent at the dinner table. Her
1
mother and sister, never worried about this change, and took Terry’s, silence as a ‘gift’ to their ears. Terry says “(the) sounds had started disappearing all around me. I didn’t know where to, and I didn’t think to ask...not then, and not the handful of years later when started having my ‘dreams’ about who I really was.” (Chapter 1) This is where her adventure begins.
Terry, began to experience funny dreams. Dreams where she was flying higher than the sky and she would look down at herself and she wouldn’t see the girl she was born as. These dreams told about, Terry’s, questioning, sexual