It’s such a pleasure today to be joining the blog tour and sharing my review of A Sign of Her Own, the debut novel from Sarah Marsh. Published by Tinder Press on 1st February, it’s now available as an ebook on all major platforms, in hardcover, and as an audiobook – the paperback will follow in January 2025. My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the invitation and support, to Caitlyn Raynor for sending the early proof that first made me want to read it, and to the publishers for the advance e-copy I always prefer to read (provided via netgalley).
An empowering story of a young woman’s journey to accepting her deaf identity, exploring the hidden history of the deaf community in the invention of the telephone
Ellen Lark is on the verge of marriage when she and her fiancé receive an unexpected visit from Alexander Graham Bell.
While her fiancé is eager to make a potentially lucrative acquaintance, Ellen knows what Bell really wants from her. Ellen is deaf, and for a time was Bell’s student in a technique called Visible Speech. As he instructed her in speaking, Bell also confided in her about his dream of producing a device which would transmit the human voice along a wire: the telephone. Now, on the cusp of wealth and renown, Bell wants Ellen to speak up in support of his claim to the patent to the telephone, which is being challenged by rivals.
But Ellen has a different story to tell: that of how Bell betrayed her, and other deaf pupils, in pursuit of ambition and personal gain, and cut Ellen off from a community in which she had come to feel truly at home. It is a story no one around Ellen seems to want to hear – but there may never be a more important time for her to tell it.
A Sign of Her Own offers a fascinating window onto a hidden moment in history, and a portrait of a young deaf woman’s journey to find her place in the world, and her own authentic voice.
This really was a tremendously engaging read, bringing history to life, told through two well balanced and equally involving timelines, vividly capturing the realities of being deaf in a hearing world along with exposing the corrupt world of scientific discovery – and it really was quite beautifully written.
Now living in London with her fiancé, Ellen Lark is sought out by her former teacher Alexander Graham Bell, seeking her support while pursuing the patent for his newly invented telephone. Their history together, when living in Boston, was when he became her teacher – discouraging the use of the sign language that became her lifeline when she lost her hearing through scarlet fever at the age of four, and that made communication possible while growing up with her mother and sister.
When her mother travels to England, she’s left in the care of her grandmother Adeline, who agrees to her attending Bell’s school where she learns the techniques of visible speech and use of notebooks – a difficult struggle, but a change driven by Bell’s belief that it’s the only way that deaf people can communicate on an equal footing in a hearing world. While his charisma engages her, and she proves a particularly good pupil, Ellen has her doubts about Bell’s motives – and her fears are only confirmed after a chance meeting with Frank McKinney, which brings her into close contact with a wider deaf community she didn’t know existed, who open her eyes to the way he was using them to achieve his own fame and fortune.
The characterisation in this book is really excellent. The story is told by Ellen, in a clear and consistent voice – and in the earlier timeline you really feel her loneliness and vulnerability as her only means of communication is denied to her. The author makes very real the difficulties of lipreading – the words that can be difficult to distinguish, the need to fill the gaps by guessing intervening words, even the problems caused by facial hair. At times, the writing becomes equally staccato and faltering – very cleverly done, and particularly effective in conveying the difficulties. But Ellen is also an extraordinarily strong character – beautifully drawn, involving the reader in her emotional journey and very easy to empathise with through the insights into her experience. And Bell himself is complex and fascinating – outwardly caring and driven by his determination to make a difference and improve the lives of others, but in reality more motivated by his quest for recognition and its rewards with rather less consideration for the lives of those he touches.
I really enjoyed finding out more about the issues around the development of the telephone, and the fight to secure the all-important patents – a moment in history I knew very little about. But I also learned a great deal about the realities of living with deafness – it’s a subject I’ve never seen examined in such depth, with such exceptional authenticity, and the author’s writing engaged me deeply at an emotional level. An important book, but also a quite stunning read – and one I’d very much recommend to others.
About the author
Sarah Marsh was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish prize in 2019 and selected for the London Library Emerging Writers programme in 2020. A Sign of Her Own is her first novel, inspired by her experiences of growing up deaf and her family’s history of deafness. She lives in London.
Thanks for the blog tour support x