Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 69: "Train Go Sorry"

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Pg. 69: "Train Go Sorry"

Leah Hager Cohen is the author of two novels and four non-fiction books, including Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World, which the New York Times Book Review called "reporting that feels like a love story -- as intimate, tender, and troubling...as any you're likely to find."

(In American Sign Language, "train go sorry" means "missing the boat.")

I asked Leah to apply the "page 69 test" to Train Go Sorry. Here is what she reported:

Train Go Sorry is a patchwork of genres, combining journalism, historical research, and first-person memoir, so I wondered, even before turning to page 69, whether anything could be called representative of the book as a whole. It made me smile to discover what was on that page: a snippet of the very root of the book -- a glimpse of my dead grandfather.

My grandfather, born deaf, came to this country from Russia as a child, and attended Lexington School for the Deaf in Manhattan. Years later, his son, my father, became director of the school. As a child, I lived in the school with my family. As an adult, I became an ASL interpreter, and eventually returned to Lexington to write a book about it, and about deaf culture.

During the year that I was doing the research and reporting, my father and I went to the school's basement one day, to the locked archives that went back more than a hundred years in the school's history. A fire had long ago destroyed many of the old records and documents, so we were not very hopeful that we would find anything of note, but after only a few minutes of searching, there it was in a cabinet drawer: my grandfather's old student file, complete with photographs, letters, medical records -- all kinds of slim artifacts that added up to a fresh glimpse of the man. My father was deeply moved, almost shaken. We brought the folder up to his office and examined its contents slowly, marvelling.

Even though my grandfather is the subject of only one chapter in my book, in a sense he is the reason I wrote the book, the reason deafness and Lexington School factor so importantly in my life. On page 69, just before the part where my father I and go to the school's basement to search for my grandfather's file, I wrote:

"He died before I was really able to converse in sign. I have never seen his handwriting. I once saw his teeth, in a glass, on the bathroom windowsill. Now everything seems like a clue."

Many thanks to Leah for taking part in the "page 69 series."

Train Go Sorry was an ALA Notable Book and New York Times Notable Book and enjoyed very positive reviews in major newspapers, including:

Eloquent...a stunningly empathetic examination of [deaf people's] stories and a brilliant narrative of Deaf culture.
--The New York Times Magazine

With skillful storytelling [and] understated passion...Leah Hager Cohen presents readers with an intimate look at the new politics of deafness.... Deaf culture, her book suggests, is a culture of closeness that is worth saving.
--Washington Post

Click here to read an excerpt from Train Go Sorry.