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A Novel
by Eliza Barry Callahan
A young woman reorients her relationship to the world in the wake of sudden deafness in this mesmerizing debut novel for readers of Rachel Cusk, Clarice Lispector, and Fleur Jaeggy
When the narrator of The Hearing Test, an artist in her late twenties, awakens one morning to a deep drone in her right ear, she is diagnosed with Sudden Deafness, but is offered no explanation for its cause. As the specter of total deafness looms, she keeps a record of her year—a score of estrangement and enchantment, of luck and loneliness, of the chance occurrences to which she becomes attuned—while living alone in a New York City studio apartment with her dog.
Through a series of fleeting and often humorous encounters—with neighbors, an ex-lover, doctors, strangers, family members, faraway friends, and with the lives and works of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and philosophers—making meaning becomes a form of consolation and curiosity, a form of survival.
At once a rumination on silence and a novel on seeing, The Hearing Test is a work of vitalizing intellect and playfulness which marks the arrival of a major new literary writer with a rare command of form, compression, and intent.
"Callahan debuts with a magnificent stream-of-consciousness narrative portraying a young New York City artist as her hearing deteriorates...It adds up to a bracing immersion into the world of the senses." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A] quietly electrifying debut ... This is a special novel with a style reminiscent of Magda Szabó's The Door and whose commitment to making sense of everyday existence calls to mind Tom McCarthy's Remainder." —Booklist (starred review)
"A writer of unusual talents and profound preoccupations: a literary newcomer to watch." —Kirkus Reviews
"In this striking novel, 'controlled panic' gives way to a cool remove when a young artist suddenly goes deaf. Silence, for her, 'is dressed as an injury,' but it is also the point of entry into the lives of other creators, and philosophers. Elegant and startling, The Hearing Test is a contemplative gem." —Amy Hempel, author of Sing to It
"Not for a while have I read a book by a writer new to me, and felt so much toward it so fast. The Hearing Test takes up fragility, sound and silence, solitude, the unknown, and the self in relation to others with a light, yet serious touch. I've found a new favorite." —Amina Cain, author of Indelicacy
This information about The Hearing Test was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Eliza Barry Callahan is a writer and artist from New York, New York. Shortly after receiving her BA from Columbia, where she studied visual art, art history, and poetry, she returned to the university where she received her MFA in writing (2022). Her writing has been published in frieze, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and BOMB. She also writes, performs, and releases music via Los Angeles-based label, ANTI- Records with a record forthcoming in 2023.
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Everywhere I go, I am asked if I think the university stifles writers...
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