Description
Book SynopsisThis volume brings together two of Paul West's best books: his critically acclaimed "Words for a Deaf Daughter" (1970), a nonfiction account of West's deaf and brain-damaged daughter Mandy at age eight, and "Gala" (1976), a novel about a writer named Wight Deulius who brings his handicapped teenage daughter Michaela from England to America for a visit. While Words is an account of Mandy's diagnosis and treatment, Gala is "the scenario of a wish-fulfillment" (as West writes in the preface), a continuation of the father and daughter's joyful investigation of the richness of life and its amazing possibilities. Ranging across natural history and astronomy in his effort to understand his daughter's handicap, West finds in Mandy/Michaela an irrepressible and unpredictable guide to the mysteries of the universe. Brought together in the same volume, the books also allow a unique look at how nonfiction and fiction techniques can be used to the same ends in the hands of a master of prose.
Trade Review"... a rare celebration of the human spirit that will move thousands of readers." -- Publishers Weekly "West shines best when he dares to invade those close to home and heart. Gala, a novel in which he attempts to jimmy the lock on his deaf daughter Mandy's closed world, tells of their joint attempt to build a basement model of the Milky Way. From this domestic conceit West launches headlong into the more rarefied precincts of brain biochemistry, astrophysics, and linguistics, yet the sum is anything but dry meditation; his prose burns with the incandescent passion only a parent could muster." -- Albert Mobilio, Voice Literary Supplement "[Gala is] wildly eloquent. Paul West... has style as full of exotic ingredients as God's bouillabaisse and, in its references to nature, as comprehensive as Noah's inventory... He has thrown a mental party for his readersa gala, a festivity that links two human beings to the constellations." -- Edmund White, New York Times Book Review
