Hearing Maud
Hearing Maud is a hybrid memoir that details the author’s experiences of deafness after losing most of her hearing at age four. It charts how, as she grew up, she was estranged from people and turned to reading and writing for solace, eventually establishing a career as a writer.
Central to her narrative is the story of Maud Praed, the deaf daughter of 19th century Queensland expatriate novelist Rosa Praed. Although Maud was deaf from infancy, she was educated at a school which taught her to speak rather than sign, a mode difficult for someone with little hearing. The breakup of Maud’s family destabilised her mental health and at age twenty-eight she was admitted to an asylum, where she stayed until she died almost forty years later. It was through uncovering Maud’s story that the author began to understand her own experiences of deafness and how they contributed to her emotional landscape, relationships and career.
Hearing Maud is available in Australia in the following formats:
Book
University of Western Australia Press Booktopia Dymocks Angus and Robertson
Ebook
Kobo Dymocks Angus and Robertson
Audio book (narrated by Katherine Tonkin)
Dymocks Booktopia Angus and Robertson
Towards the end of Jessica White’s Hearing Maud – in which the author bares a great deal of herself – White explains she wants readers to understand how difficult it is being deaf, still, and how hard people with disability must work.
It seems like an act of emphatic generosity, then, for White to publish the story she offers here. “All writing, all art, is an act of faith,” Truman Capote said. “… Any work of art, provided it springs from a sincere motivation to further understanding between people, is an act of faith and therefore is an act of love.” For White, who lost most of her hearing after contracting meningitis at four, this is also a demonstration of divine empathy.