Deaf Sentence: David Lodge
Random House $32.95
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Retired linguistics professor Desmond Bates is slowly going deaf. It's creating frustration and embarrassment - as well as some mildly entertaining moments worthy of a 70s sitcom.
Then Alex appears, a seductive graduate student intent on ensnaring our bumbling house-husband (she needs a linguistics expert to supervise her research on suicide notes).
Buried within this loosely-focused story, Lodge weaves a hotchpotch of literary references, musings on deafness, and trivia about famous deaf people.
A gentle Sunday-afternoon ramble of a novel.