Sara Nović's first novel has recently become an audiobook to which I will not listen. The characters have been assigned voices and accents and inflections that I’ll never hear. This is not a complaint, exactly; to have written a book that someone wants to publish in any and all formats is a writer’s dream. But to hold some disc or drive that contains a thing I made, transformed into a new thing I can no longer understand, is a predicament in which few writers find themselves.
This disconnect will appear with increasing frequency as I embark on a series of literary events following the launch of my novel. As an audience member I have been to my share of readings in New York. I go because I am in love with books; I go to be with my friends. But even as a spectator they require a lot of concentration, and sometimes when I’ve worked myself into a cross-eyed headache I turn off my hearing aids and dip below the surface of the sound, let myself drift in the quiet. At my own events I won’t have the choice to opt out.
So far I have read in public only three times, each distressing in the regular ways (an audience!), with the added terror of exposing an increasingly unknowable part of myself – my voice. I can feel my words in my chest and mouth, but can’t be sure of what they sound like out in the world. As far as I’m concerned my voice has no echo; it does not stick to the tape recording. What does it mean to perform for an audience with such limited control of your output?
Books have always provided me with a sense of solace and companionship when I found the hearing world overwhelming. Growing up I filled notebooks with the things I was afraid to say aloud. Libraries, too, seem designed for me – a place where one isn’t supposed to talk, equality under the rule of silence...
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