Mean Little deaf Queer A Memoir

by Galloway, Terry

• ISBN13: 9780807073315
• ISBN10: 0807073318
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-01
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

When Terry Galloway was born on Halloween, no one knew that an experimental antibiotic given to her mother had wreaked havoc on her fetal nervous system. After her family moved from Berlin, Germany, to Austin, Texas, hers became a deafening, hallucinatory childhood where everything, including her own body, changed for the worse. But those unwelcome changes awoke in this particular child a dark, defiant humor that fueled her lifelong obsessions with language, duplicity, and performance.As a ten-year-old self-proclaimed "child freak," she acted out her fury with her boxy hearing aids and Coke-bottle glasses by faking her own drowning at a camp for crippled children. Ever since that first real-life performance, Galloway has used theater, whether onstage or off, to defy and transcend her reality. With disarming candor, Terry writes about her mental breakdowns, her queer identity, and living in a silent, quirky world populated by unforgettable characters. What could have been a bitter litany of complaint is instead an unexpectedly hilarious and affecting take on life.

Author Biography

Terry Galloway is the founder of the Actual Lives writing and performance programs; a founding member of Esther’s Follies, Austin’s legendary cabaret; and cofounder of the Mickee Faust Club in Tallahassee, Florida. She divides her time between Austin and Tallahassee.

 

Table of Contents

Prologue: Nine	p. ix
Drowning
Them and Me	p. 3
Visions	p. 17
Presto Change-o	p. 25
Meaner	p. 35
The Performance of Drowning	p. 43
Lost Boy	p. 59
Passing
Little-d Deaf	p. 73
On Being Told No	p. 83
Passing Strange	p. 93
Drag Acts	p. 105
Shhhhhh!	p. 123
Jobs for the Deaf	p. 143
The Shallow End	p. 149
Emerging
Scare	p. 167
Who Died and What Killed Them	p. 189
Why I Should Matter	p. 201
Epilogue: A Happy Life ...	p. 221
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