Makara

by Kristen Ringman

ANY WATER WAS A WAY HOME ... What if you grew up with a seal mother and a human father? Fionnuala is such a daughter: a part-human, part-seal Deaf woman who falls in love with Neela, a Hearing woman in India. While growing up with Neela's family in Tamil Nadu, she struggles with her distant parents living apart in Ireland and Indonesia. Eventually her father brings her to Venice where she becomes a mime artist. What binds them all together is the unstoppable undercurrent of ache running through the sea of their lives. "In gorgeous, briny prose, Kristen Ringman's novel grabbed my heart and didn't let it go until the last page. Fionnuala is a delightful character who glides easily between the worlds of the sea and land, the deaf and the hearing, grief and joy. Both magical and raw, this story made me happy to be alive." - Lucy Jane Bledsoe, author of The Big Bang Symphony

174 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2012

About the author

Kristen Ringman is a deaf writer, traveler, and artist. She writes multi-cultural lyrical fiction and poetry inspired by her persistent wanderings to far off places. She is the author of I Stole You: stories from the fae (Handtype Press), Makara: a novel (Handtype Press), a Lambda Literary finalist in Debut Fiction and nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and the editor and publisher of Everyday Haiku: an anthology (Wandering Muse Press). She received her MFA from Goddard College in 2008. She’s currently working on her first poetry collection and literary fiction novels that play along the boundaries of magical realism, fantasy, and horror. Her work can be found in Callisto: A Queer Fiction Journal, QDA: A Queer Disabiity Anthology, and many other anthologies.

Reviews

[Kate]

I was entranced with her writing, the sensual, visceral way she makes the coming-of-age story of this young woman come alive. The book is wonderfully surprising and unusual.

[Leigh Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deaf reader reviewing books with deaf characters. This book is listed on my ranked list of books with deaf characters.

The author is a late-deafened and grew up with a deaf mother. It's clear that she knows what she's doing, so this review is basically an overview of some facts (i.e., what languages are in play).

The narrator (Fionnuala/Lakshmi) was born deaf, uses Irish Sign Language (ISL) with parents, and reads/writes Old Irish as well as English. She was mainstreamed with a visiting Deaf teacher in Ireland.

When she moves to India, her friend Neela teaches her written Tamil, and she teaches Neela ISL. The deaf institute in India is oral and faraway, so she attends school with Neela and relies on her real-time notes. There is a mention of a local sign language which Fionnuala doesn’t know.

In Italy Fionnuala befriends mimes and people who can read/write in English. She to learn Italian Sign Language (LIS) through her interpreters when she starts high school.

Throughout the novella, we see Fionnuala engage in patchwork communication, in part because of her deafness and in part because of her interactions with people around the world.

Also, our protagonist is a lesbian, so we have some intersectionality with our deafness--a rare find!

[Mills College Library]

Fiction R5819m 2012

[l · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has an interesting premise but it is very poorly written. Moreover, I am not here for a book with a white girl goes to India and makes out with a lotus-lipped, mocha-and-chai-skinned Indian girl narrative. Nope. No thanks.