Tribes

Tribes by Nina Raine                Audiobook: 1 hour, 32 minutes           Paperback Book:  70 pages                         

A fast-paced story.   Lots of witty repartee between the family members of main character, Billy, who has been deaf since birth but reads lips and communicates with his family in kind as that is how he grew up.   Billy meets a girl named Sylvia, who has hearing but is going deaf.   Sylvia’s parents are deaf and she grew up communicating with American Sign Language and she does not read lips well.   When Billy introduces her to his family, it is over dinner and they pretty much grill her on who she is and her background.   They see her as disagreeable for wanting Billy to learn sign language when they feel he communicates just fine as he is.    However, when Billy is around the deaf community he has met through Sylvia, he doesn’t feel he fits in because he is a beginner at signing and can’t keep up with the conversation with them nor does he know how to take the jabs they remark to one another about him.   Sylvia explains to Billy (and also to his family) that the deaf do not automatically understand the nuances of sarcasm, or irony.   They do not communicate in ways that would convey those ideas.   The deaf communicate in very concise and direct terms which is why the hearing sometimes mistake their shortness or extreme directness as being off-putting kind of in your face.   Sylvia does her best to explain this but while Billy’s mother understands, his father blows it off because he really doesn’t give a rat’s patooty.  (He uses far more expletives in his conversations believe me.)    Billy’s sister is sort of spoiled and self-centered not really noticing what anyone else is going through because her own issues seem far more enormous to her than anyone else’s.    The mother is the fixer making everyone behave and get along.   The Dad is full of himself and says things for their shock value it appears.  Billy’s older brother loves him a lot and has always been very protective over Billy as are both parents.   The Dad says Billy is the only one he truly loves the other two are awful and he wishes they would move out of the house so he could be rid of them.   Of course the unspoken point is he loves them and can verbally joust with them as they do him.   The older brother does tend to take things more to heart than his sister, though.   Sylvia and the family butt heads because they feel she is trying to control Billy turning him into a signer when he is fine as he is.   She sees the family as controlling for not allowing Billy to learn sign language and thinks they also should have learned sign language to communicate with him during his life instead of expecting him to read their lips all the time.   Billy is so good at reading lips however that Sylvia inspires him to get a job as a court lip reader to interpret what is being said on videotape in criminal cases.    Billy stands with Sylvia against his family and moves out of his parents house and in with her.    Billy takes courses and becomes a court interpreter.    Much more transpires there are sub plots of romantic liaisons, betrayals, lies, and the result is shocking.   Good story, amusing but very colorful language and irreverent behavior.