Illuminating in its careful intertwining of beauty and power, Marsh’s debut, A Sign of Her Own, based on her own experience, is a historical fiction that talks back to and resonates deeply with contemporary attitudes. 

Set in the late 19^th century, we follow Ellen Lark, a fictional protagonist on a journey of growth, devastation and rebuilding as she attempts to navigate the hearing world as a deaf person, having lost her hearing to scarlet fever at the age of four. She becomes a student of Alexander Graham Bell, the (still contested) inventor of the telephone and oralist, who teaches her to speak using his own system of Visible Speech symbols. Underpinning everything in the novel is the battle, at the time, between the increasingly popular Oralism – teaching deaf people to speak, thus allowing their integration into hearing society – and sign language, the inferior status of which resulted in its users’ isolation from the hearing world.  

Under Bell’s tuition, signing is forbidden. But outside the classroom Ellen meets Frank, a deaf man who signs as his first language, and agrees to privately teach him to speak English. In their lessons, she becomes the pupil once again as she is introduced to the deaf world Bell has tried to protect her from, discovering that sign language and connection can co-exist. Her lessons from both the hearing world and the deaf world, and the stories of betrayal, deceit and revenge that unfold within each, ignite an inner battle for Ellen herself as she is forced to decide where her own loyalty lies. 

The beauty of this novel is the sense of authenticity and unapologetic imperfection. In all the forms of communication described throughout, the characters make mistakes. Within the first few pages, we see Ellen’s misunderstanding in her lip-reading of “speeches” as “peaches”, for example, and, much later, the dangerous confusion between “mystery”, “mercury” and “Mr Gray”. Ellen’s visible speech might be “perfect” as she improves, but it becomes meaningless compared to her imperfect sign language, which is full of mistakes and clarifications. Real life is not a perfect speech.  

With so much uncertainty, both of the integrity of others and in interactions, comes Ellen’s impatience to know: “How long will they talk for?… I shift on my feet trying to adjust my posture as I feign interest, make some nods, smile at what appear to be timely moments.” The frustration is not at her deafness, but at the hearing world’s lack of patience and willingness to understand.  

Fast-forward nearly 150 years and we have the British Sign Language Act (2022), legally recognising BSL, and the exciting prospect of a BSL GCSE being introduced next year. In 1884, Bell said that “to ask the value of speech…is like asking the value of life.” As Marsh explains, “I have hoped to ask that question again, and to show how it might be possible to arrive at different answers.” While the fight for inclusivity is by no means over, the moving answer reached through Ellen’s journey greatly overpowers the ignorant question and generates new interest and hope for today’s readers. 

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