Tag: Memoir

“Articulate: A Deaf Memoir of Voice” by Rachel Kolb

Rachel Kolb was born profoundly deaf the same year that the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, and she grew up as part of the first generation of deaf people with legal rights to accessibility services. Still, from a young age, she contorted herself to expectations set by a world that prioritizes hearing people. So even while she found clarity and meaning in American Sign Language (ASL) and written literature, she learned to speak through speech therapy and to piece together missing sounds through lipreading and an eventual cochlear implant.

Now, in Articulate, Kolb blends personal narrative with commentary to explore the different layers of deafness, language, and voice. She tells the story of how, over time, she came to realize that clear or articulate self-expression isn’t just a static pinnacle to reach, a set of words to pronounce correctly, but rather a living and breathing process that happens between individual human beings. In chronicling her own voice and the many ways she’s come to understand it, Kolb illuminates the stakes and complexities of finding mutual and reciprocal forms of communication.

Part memoir, part cultural exploration, Articulate details a life lived among words in varied sensory forms and considers why and how those words matter. Told through rich storytelling, analysis, and humor, this is a linguistic coming-of-age in both Deaf and hearing worlds, challenging us to consider how language expresses our humanity—and offering more ways we might exist together.

Review

Memoirs can be tricky because while they are obviously just one person’s perspective, they can be written in a way that feels dismissive of other points of view. I think Rachel tried to speak to a large audience about her experiences and does acknowledge a lot of the struggles d/Deaf people face. That said I think in some places she failed to realize her own privileges. Her parents were wealthy enough that her mom could quit her job to take care of her. They are also fully on board with learning sign language and insisted on signing everything with her. She goes to various camps and rides horses and later goes to several different countries to study. The privilege of having money to do things however you want to do them is a lot and I’m not sure how aware Rachel was of that as she talked about her life.

I did like the way Rachel tried to explain various things about being deaf in a hearing world. The struggle to follow along with conversations, and dealing with school years and speech therapy. I do think some things could have been explained a bit further and perhaps with some additional thought on how they might be read by different types of people. Rachel seems to be aware that there are different experiences of being deaf (the experience of not being about to hear) and/or Deaf (Deaf culture experiences) – but in some cases some of it may have felt exclusive. I wish she had talked a bit more about her experiences with the Cochlear Implant and how it worked for her, or didn’t work as well as she’d hoped, as the case seemed to be. I think there’s a likely reason she decided not to use it as much, but I’m not sure it was as clear as it could have been. People don’t just randomly decide to not use their CIs or hearing aids for that matter. There’s usually a reason – like they don’t actually work to fix your hearing completely and you decide enough is enough trying to deal with people who don’t get it.

I also wanted to note that Rachel mentions having read the Harry Potter books often and how much they meant to her. Currently there is a lot of controversy around J. K. Rowling and her actions against the Trans community. Many believe Harry Potter should never be mentioned ever again. I do believe that it can be harder for some than others to let go of that series, but I also believe that it can be a sign of privilege to seemingly not care at all.

Book Details

Author’s Website

Rachel Kolb

Publisher / Date

Ecco, September 2025

Genre

Memoir

Page Count

304

Date Completed

April 25, 2026

“Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism” by Elsa Sjunneson

A Deafblind writer and professor explores how the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies, and TV harms both the disabled community and everyone else.

As a Deafblind woman with partial vision in one eye and bilateral hearing aids, Elsa Sjunneson lives at the crossroads of blindness and sight, hearing and deafness—much to the confusion of the world around her. While she cannot see well enough to operate without a guide dog or cane, she can see enough to know when someone is reacting to the visible signs of her blindness and can hear when they’re whispering behind her back. And she certainly knows how wrong our one-size-fits-all definitions of disability can be.

As a media studies professor, she’s also seen the full range of blind and deaf portrayals on film, and here she deconstructs their impact, following common tropes through horror, romance, and everything in between. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history of the Deafblind experience, Being Seen explores how our cultural concept of disability is more myth than fact, and the damage it does to us all.

Review

I really enjoyed this book and the way Elsa mixes personal stories with Deafblind history and criticisms of portrayals of disability in various mediums. The criticisms are all relevant to her life because the lives of disabled people are often shaped by what others assume to be true. Like all of us who are disabled Elsa has had to fight the ableist assumptions people have made in order have a life that she wants. She has a whole chapter on Hellen Keller and how Hellen’s story is often changed to suite ableist ideas of who she was. There’s also a lot to be said for the damage caused by people “not seeing disability” – because when that happens it results in a lot of internalized ableism to unpack while also needing to learn how to actually work with your disabilities instead of ignoring them to pass as non-disabled. There’s also a chapter about disability in science fiction and how we’re often erased.

Book Details

Author’s Website

Elsa Sjunneson

Publisher / Date

S&S/Simon Element, October 26, 2021

Genre / Topics

Memoir, Disability

Page Count

288

Completion Date

September 2, 2024