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Hands of My Father
is the sweet remembrance of the author’s childhood, growing up with two deaf parents asa hearing child who had to serve as an interpreter in a world that was not too kind to any kind of disability and certainly not to deafness. Even his parents’ families treated them with surprising callousness: both became deaf as a result of childhood diseases but no relative tried to learn sign language to communicate properly with them, and they seem to have been treated as mentally deficient rather than simply deaf.
Still, his deaf parents managed to create a loving and supportive environment for their hearing sons, even if not everything was rosy, especially for the author, the oldest, who often felt that his responsibilities were overwhelming. He tells about the love and the frustrations both, for a very satisfying, happy family memoir.
