Readings Between the Lips

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. (Apr.)