Reading Between the Lips: A Totally Deaf Man Makes It in the Mainstream

Recounts the author's experiences after becoming deaf as a six-year-old, as he learned to read lips, and eventually worked as a free-lance writer in the United States and Israel

Born in Chicago in 1934, Golan became deaf at age six as the result of a meningitis attack. Since he had been talking for four years, he was in the category of the postlingually deaf, which led his parents to determine that he should be trained in speech and lip-reading, rather than in signing. He attended the University of Chicago, studied journalism at the University of Illinois and became a successful freelance writer in both the U.S. and Israel. Golan forthrightly calls himself disabled (he is reminded of his handicap daily by his inability to use the telephone), but he excoriates those who want the deaf to communicate via American Sign Language, which he argues denies them entry into the mainstream, since few hearing people know or care to learn how to sign. Golan also writes of his hearing wife and four hearing daughters and of the family's move to Israel in 1970s, return to the U.S. in 1978 and relocation to Israel in 1986. The primary focus of his book, however, is a call to the deaf to take their place in the hearing world by communicating on its own terms, by speaking and reading lips.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Deafened by a high fever caused by spinal meningitis at age five, Golan was already reading and writing and, of course, talking with considerable skill. In this amusing and percipient autobiography, Golan certainly demonstrates that he can survive quite successfully in the mainstream (without sign language). He launches some devastatingly clever assaults on Harlan Lane and others who insist on the necessity and cultural veracity of the Deaf Community. His remarkable talents include a confounding ability to jump into new situations with zest and skill. He has worked as a sportswriter, advertising copywriter, academic book editor, marketing executive, television writer, and carpenter on a kibbutz. His own versatility and outstanding achievements belie his insistence that any deaf child could be taught to speak and maintain a role in the hearing world. Issues aside, this is a book filled with stories that will delight all readers about a man who works hard, enjoys his family, and never stops trying. Golan is an excellent raconteur. Hopefully, he'll write more stories about his life in Israel and the secrets shared with his grandchildren. Denise Perry Donavin