In this sensitive portrayal of love and war, author Itani reveals the life of Grania O'Neill from her earliest days in Deseronto, Canada, through her marriage to Jim Lloyd, who serves in the Ambulance Corps during World War I.  Grania has been deaf since the age of five, and Itani opens her inner world to the reader, using Grania's voice to tell the story and gracefully conveying her deafness as part of her selfhood, not as a handicap.  Using short sentences of twelve to fifteen words when Grania is a young child trying to figure out her world, Itani begins the story in a simple subject-verb-object pattern, using no complicated clauses or involved syntax, which Grania herself would be incapable of using.  When Grania becomes fluent in sign language and lip-reading, the sentence structure becomes more complex.  By the time she marries Jim, a hearing man, sentences and syntax are fully developed, and Grania's ability to recognize ambiguity, to see relationships between events, and to respond fully to a hearing world are obvious in her "voice."

The point of view alternates between Grania and Jim, once Jim goes off to war, and important themes--war and peace, life and death, love and friendship, and strength and dependence--weave and develop throughout their contrasting worlds, Grania at home and Jim at the front in Belgium.  Itani develops these age-old themes in new ways, sensitively incorporating them with the imagery of sounds and silence, sight and shadows, action and inaction, images we have come to associate with the life Grania and Jim share.  In Jim's traumatic world, sound becomes overwhelming:  pounding guns, explosions, screams of agony from wounded soldiers.  As a result of his life with Grania, however, he is also acutely sensitive to what he sees, discovering, ironically, that it is the hands of the dead and dying that communicate most vividly because they "revealed the final argument: clenched in anger, relaxed in acquiescence, seized in a posture of surprise or forgiveness."

The subordinate characters further flesh out the themes.  The friendship and interdependence of Jim and Irish, his best friend parallel the love and support Grania has received from her sister, her remarkable grandmother, and her deaf friends.  Grania gains strength through them and is able to give support and strength to others when they need her, just as Jim gains strength from his relationship with Irish and continues to rescue the wounded and dying.  As the reader comes to know Grania and Jim and the love they feel for each other, Grania's silent but active world becomes more and more understandable to the reader.  Ultimately, the reader has to agree with Grania when she declares, ironically, "Sound is always more important to the hearing."  Mary Whipple
In this sensitive portrayal of love and war, author Itani reveals the life of Grania O'Neill from her earliest days in Deseronto, Canada, through her marriage to Jim Lloyd, who serves in the Ambulance Corps during World War I. Grania has been deaf since the age of five, and Itani opens her inner world to the reader, using Grania's voice to tell the story and gracefully conveying her deafness as part of her selfhood, not as a handicap. Using short sentences of twelve to fifteen words when Grania is a young child trying to figure out her world, Itani begins the story in a simple subject-verb-object pattern, using no complicated clauses or involved syntax, which Grania herself would be incapable of using. When Grania becomes fluent in sign language and lip-reading, the sentence structure becomes more complex. By the time she marries Jim, a hearing man, sentences and syntax are fully developed, and Grania's ability to recognize ambiguity, to see relationships between events, and to respond fully to a hearing world are obvious in her "voice. "

The point of view alternates between Grania and Jim, once Jim goes off to war, and important themes--war and peace, life and death, love and friendship, and strength and dependence--weave and develop throughout their contrasting worlds, Grania at home and Jim at the front in Belgium. Itani develops these age-old themes in new ways, sensitively incorporating them with the imagery of sounds and silence, sight and shadows, action and inaction, images we have come to associate with the life Grania and Jim share. In Jim's traumatic world, sound becomes overwhelming:  pounding guns, explosions, screams of agony from wounded soldiers. As a result of his life with Grania, however, he is also acutely sensitive to what he sees, discovering, ironically, that it is the hands of the dead and dying that communicate most vividly because they "revealed the final argument: clenched in anger, relaxed in acquiescence, seized in a posture of surprise or forgiveness. "

The subordinate characters further flesh out the themes. The friendship and interdependence of Jim and Irish, his best friend parallel the love and support Grania has received from her sister, her remarkable grandmother, and her deaf friends. Grania gains strength through them and is able to give support and strength to others when they need her, just as Jim gains strength from his relationship with Irish and continues to rescue the wounded and dying. As the reader comes to know Grania and Jim and the love they feel for each other, Grania's silent but active world becomes more and more understandable to the reader. Ultimately, the reader has to agree with Grania when she declares, ironically, "Sound is always more important to the hearing. "  Mary Whipple