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When the narrator of The Hearing Test, an artist in her late twenties, awakens one morning to a deep drone in her right ear, she is diagnosed with Sudden Deafness, but is offered no explanation for its cause. As the specter of total deafness looms, she keeps a record of her year—a score of estrangement and enchantment, of luck and loneliness, of the chance occurrences to which she becomes attuned—while living alone in a New York City studio apartment with her dog.
Through a series of fleeting and often humorous encounters—with neighbors, an ex-lover, doctors, strangers, family members, faraway friends, and with the lives and works of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and philosophers—making meaning becomes a form of consolation and curiosity, a form of survival.
At once a rumination on silence and a novel on seeing, The Hearing Test is a work of vitalizing intellect and playfulness which marks the arrival of a major new literary writer with a rare command of form, compression, and intent.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
February 6, 2025 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781696615938
- File size: 104394 KB
- Duration: 03:37:28
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from January 29, 2024
Callahan debuts with a magnificent stream-of-consciousness narrative portraying a young New York City artist as her hearing deteriorates. The unnamed narrator wakes one August morning to a droning in her right ear that causes everything to sound distorted. After a hearing test, she is diagnosed with sudden deafness and referred to a series of specialists. The narrator’s diaristic account of more tests, hypnotherapy, clinical trials, and her declining hearing over the ensuing months is shaped by her various relationships and changing circumstances. In October, she receives a visit from her unnamed ex-boyfriend, who wants to say goodbye to the dog they once shared before he moves to Los Angeles. In November, she calls a friend of her mother’s who’s dying from cancer and tells the friend it’s “terrible she would die at ,” to which the friend jokingly replies she’d “rather die than go deaf.” The narrator finds solace on hearing loss forums, where many people report hearing the same “phantom songs” (“Amazing Grace,” “Silent Night,” “The Star-Spangled Banner”), and ruminates in beautiful prose on the idea of silence (“Being in the presence of things made me more aware of the way I was experiencing their absence—everything existed in a silhouette”). It adds up to a bracing immersion into the world of the senses. Agent: Harriet Moore, David Higham Assoc. -
March 7, 2025
Callahan debuts with a haunting novel about a New York-based artist in her late twenties who awakens one morning with a deep droning accompanied by a metallic sound of rolling thunder in her right ear. After visiting many doctors, she is diagnosed with a condition called sudden deafness and is now facing the reality that she will soon lose her hearing. Callahan, who was herself diagnosed with sudden deafness just before the start of the COVID pandemic, lyrically narrates her autofictional work, piercingly capturing the grief that her unnamed protagonist feels at receiving this life-altering news. Callahan's narration allows listeners to step into the character's shoes and experience how she approaches the world differently with her impending deafness. Listeners are brought along to feel and understand her depression, financial anxiety, and a deluge of other emotions; meander with her along the streets of Venice; reconnect with ex-boyfriends and strangers; and connect with her sorrow even as she takes in the beauty around her. VERDICT A debut novel for listeners seeking an emotionally rich stream-of-consciousness story full of poignant imagery and observations. For those who enjoy the work of Rachel Cusk and Fleur Jaeggy.--Kaitlyn Tanis
Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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