Short description
Retired Professor of Linguistics Desmond Bates is going deaf. It's a bother for his wife who has an enviably successful new career and is too busy to be endlessly repeating herself. Roles are reversed with his aging father, who resents his son's attempts to help him.
Long description
Retired Professor of Linguistics Desmond Bates is going deaf. It's a bother for his wife who has an enviably successful new career and is too busy to be endlessly repeating herself. Roles are reversed with his aging father, who resents his son's attempts to help him. And then there's Alex, a student whom Desmond has agreed to help after a typical misunderstanding at a party. But her increasingly bizarre requests cannot all be blamed on his defective hearing. So much for growing old gracefully...
Review
'Brilliantly entertaining. Makes us giggle, laugh and even roar' Daily Mail 'One of the most moving things I have read in a long while... extremely readable, pitch perfect writing' Spectator 'Very funny. Deaf Sentence supplies the unusual sight of a senior British novelist bringing off the very difficult trick of successfully extending his range' Guardian 'Expert and enjoyable... many laugh-out-loud moments... gloriously funny, moving' Literary Review 'Full to bursting with comic riffs, apercus and insights. Seriously funny' New Statesman 'Very good, deeply enjoyable... rich with satirical set-pieces' Observer 'Sophisticated, beautifully layered... speaks to the intellect as well as the senses. As moving as it is entertaining. Lodge is a consummate observer of modern life' Herald 'There is much that is wonderful' Scotland on Sunday 'A quietly brilliant study of deafness, death and linguistics' Prospect 'Defies categorization... celebrates the sheer preciousness of existence' Irish Independent 'Enjoyable, thought-provoking... Lodge at the top of his game' Irish Times 'One of Britain's best-loved comic writers' The Lady 'He renders the painful isolation of deafness comic. A deeply melancholic novel' Independent 'Extremely readable, generously studded throughout with amusing comic moments underpinned with passages of genuine compassion and insight' Big Issue 'Wise and witty' Tatler 'Witty, exhiliratingly sharp' Sunday Times 'Funny, humane' Financial Times 'Dark and revealing comedy... probably no other work of fiction has described so successfully the multiplicity of confusions, frustrations and social stratagems deriving from deafness' The Times Literary Supplement