Novelist Maile Meloy praises True Biz in the New York Times, describing the book as “tenderly beautiful and radiantly outraged,” offering “vivid access to all of the main characters’ points of view” and making “a strong case for the role of Deaf education in providing language learning and a strong sense of self for young men and women. At times somber, often bitingly funny, awash in playfulness and fiercely proud, True Biz is a masterfully crafted love letter to Deaf culture.” Though written in English, the book is bursting with ASL, offering an exploration into the power of language and the violence of language deprivation, the beauty of free and open communication, and the possibilities (and limitations) of translation. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.Laura Sackton’s review in BookPage calls True Biz “a vibrant celebration of Deaf culture and Deaf communities … It’s a remarkable book that is many things at once: a primer on Deaf history, a love story, a coming-of-age tale, a riotous political awakening, a family saga and a richly layered character study. This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, cochlear implants and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another-and changed forever. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history final, and have doctors, politicians, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies.
True biz ( adj/exclamation American Sign Language): really, seriously, definitely, real-talk
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