Grab the Lapels

What’s that Pig Outdoors? by Henry Kisor

Henry Kisor was born in 1940. When Kisor was three, he contracted meningitis and possibly encephalitis, and the drugs used to save his life destroyed his hearing. Thinking that his three years of exposure to speech would benefit his future, Kisor’s parents signed up for a mail order course on teaching your deaf child to speak. Even in this memoir, Kisor thanks the woman who developed the program for making him fit in with the hearing world. After college, he spent most of his adult life in Illinois working for the Chicago-Sun Times in a prestigious position as a “newspaperman” and the book reviewer. This memoir, What’s That Pig Outdoors?, was published in 1990 and revised in 2010 (I read the more current edition). Kisor’s title comes from a time his son said something and Kisor read his lips incorrectly.

Kisor explains who he is better than I could in summary: “I am what is called an ‘oralist’. That is, I depend wholly on spoken language and lip reading, however imperfect they may be, to help me live and work in a hearing world. I do not know sign language at all.” Oh, how I can see my Deaf professor now! Almost no one can truly read lips, and Kisor acknowledges this. Lipreading relies heavily on preparedness, context, predicting, and guesswork. Wouldn’t Kisor’s life have been richer had he learned ASL and could communicate with his fellow deaf Americans? I can see my professor signing SAD++.

And yet, Kisor’s personality was absolutely jovial, that of an opportunistic lad in a hearing world. Now, please do not read this book review as an endorsement for telling deaf people to “try harder” or that deaf people could learn to speak if only they were more motivated. Think of it this way; most of us who have taken a linguistics class struggle through the unit on identifying where in the mouth we make each sound, and yet deaf children are told to make every sound correctly by feel and memorization only. They only know they are correct when someone else confirms it. That’s how hard it is, what Kisor does in speaking himself and reading the mouth shapes of others.

I appreciated Kisor’s memoir for showing me a different life from the traditional story of Deaf people I have studied. The common narrative is someone who is deaf at infancy, typically sent to general public school with an interpreter or deaf public school where everything is in ASL, isolation. Mostly, family can’t sign, so the child feels isolated until they find other Deaf adults and become themselves, feeling proud of their identity. Kisor, as far as I could tell, didn’t befriend or know much about deaf people until he was quite older.

I’d like to mention some ways in which Kisor’s life took a different trajectory, and some commonalities, with other deaf authors to convince you to read What’s That Pig Outdoors? and not feel all memoirs about deafness are the same. Similarly to Rachel Kolb’s parents, Kisor’s mom and dad felt he could do anything until he couldn’t. Really, they weren’t just supportive; they were advocates:

“…I came home with a sheet of paper the teacher had given me. On one side was a list of hobbies for the hearing and on the other a list of hobbies for the deaf. I don’t recall what the hobbies were — in fact, I don’t remember the episode at all. But Mother and Dad went through the roof. They would have no truck with the assumption that deaf children automatically cannot do certain things. Only when I had tried them and failed could they be set aside as impossibilities.”

He was encouraged to try anything first; if he failed, okay, that wasn’t for him, just like any child.

A difference between Kolb and Kisor is Kisor went through general public school with no interpreters because he was born long before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 that would guarantee him access to an interpreter in school. Instead, he read books on class topics beforehand, preparing himself with context to piece together what his teachers lectured on. He read their lips and relied on notes taken by willing classmates, as a deaf person cannot look at paper to write notes and another person talking at the same time.

Both Kolb and Kisor loved written English, taking refuge in books and appreciating the nuance of word choices. Eventually, Kisor becomes a journalist, which included interviews with famous authors like Anthony Burgess, Maurice Sendak, Alice McDermott, Tom Woolfe, Joseph Heller, and Walker Percy. Interviews were a family affair when Kisor’s wife would type up the transcript of a recorded interview. But if Kisor can read lips, why did he need a full transcript so desperately that he had to use his wife’s free labor? Kisor admits, “More than once an interview has ended without my understanding a single word the interviewee said. The transcript reveals controversial statements not questioned, promising avenues not taken.” Therefore, though the author celebrates his identity as a deaf oralist, he’s honest about the limitations. He also confesses some hearing people cannot understand his speech at all.

And you do feel Kisor is honest in his memoir. Not only admitting his limitations, he explains his frustrations and faults. When a Black hearing colleague who worked in the manual labor side of the newspaper called him a “dummy,” Kisor confesses that he almost called the man a racial slur, but held his tongue. Furthermore, he openly acknowledges that he wants to be part of hearing society and has accepted stereotypes about (other) deaf people as true. Still, in a choice wisely made, he argues that his life should not serve as model for how other deaf people live because there are too many variabilities. Also, his life has not been easy. In fact, to feel more comfortable with hearing people, he became an alcoholic while working for the newspaper until his wife, Debby, threatened to take their sons and leave him.

Speaking of Debby, Kisor also builds his ethos with gratefulness. He is always thankful to anyone who made a measurable improvement in his personal and professional lives, from his wife and parents to his professors and coworkers. Each is named, discussed thoroughly, and thanked, though Kisor never writes this in a list-like fashion, which I’ve almost implied. In fact, his writing is gorgeous, hinting at the classic novels he’s analyzed and written essays about as a student. A few times, I came across words bigger than my mental dictionary — this is a learned writer that readers will appreciate.

But really, like some of the best writers, he’s funny too, often at his own expense. On his first date with his now-wife, he shares her fears: “[Debby] says that the idea of going out with a deaf man on a blind date almost overwhelmed her, and her roommate had to push her down the stairs to meet me. She says that she could not understand a word I said the entire evening. She says that before I had taken her home she knew she was going to marry me. Go figure.” Even though he’s funny throughout, Kisor never makes a joke at the expense of being honest. He emphasizes that hearing-deaf marriages divorce at a rate of about 90% because it is like an elite, posh New Yorker marrying a country farmer; there’s nothing wrong with either, but how do they coincide? In his marriage, he and Debby were both part of hearing culture.

Lastly, I want to add that the 2010 update at the end of What’s That Pig Outdoors? is not minor. A lot changed from 1990 to 2010, including the passage of the ADA, but also the common use of email and texting, which changed Kisor’s life. Kisor emphasizes communication access via technology for a deaf person “an important way of keeping the walls of isolation from closing in.”

Beyond technology advances, he’s thought more about deafness (a medical condition) vs. Deaf culture. People ask him hypothetical questions. When people ask him what he would do if he had a deaf infant, he thinks about it carefully. If the child became deaf after a few years of being hearing, he would lean toward oralism. If the child could lip read or had residual hearing, he would lean toward learning to lip read. However, if the child were born deaf, he notes, “…I’d plunge right into teaching the infant sign — and learning it myself — so that it would acquire language as early as possible. As soon as it was old enough, I’d encourage it to learn speech and lipreading as a second language. I’d give the child every possible chance to become a member of the larger English-speaking community, the same one to which I belong, as well as to the signing culture. And, in any case, if my child could not master oral communication sufficiently and instead displayed an affinity for the signing world, I’d not swoon in despair. In fact, I’d plunge wholeheartedly with my child into the special culture of the deaf. Though they are perhaps limited in ways the successful oral death are not, the signing deaf are just as valuable and productive members of society, their lives just as rich and full as those of the oral deaf.”

And that, I think, is the beauty of going on Kisor’s journey. He’s always learning and considering his opinions as things change, a valuable lesson in our age of double-down mulishness.

34 comments

  1. As I get deafer with old age I clearly understand what people are saying much better if I am looking (staring) directly at them. I doubt I am lip reading – I couldn’t imagine being one of those people who looks at someone across the room and knows what they are saying – but it definitely helps.

    Still, I think leaving a deaf child to rely on lipreading would be a last resort.

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    • As someone who is hard of hearing and has used hearing aids for a long time now, I don’t know of anyone who says that they can read lips from across a room. Basically, we’re staring at the other person’s mouth to get context clues, using our residual hearing and looking for mouth shape to support it. This was something a lot of people learned during covid– that they are hard of hearing. They hadn’t realized just how much they were relying on seeing someone’s mouth until they could no longer see anyone’s mouths.

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    • I did feel like this was an individual I could trust while I was reading the book. All the struggles and doubts, all the people who encouraged him and how he set boundaries for himself; all of it made for an excellent read.

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  3. Wow, how amazing he became a journalist because so much of that role relies on hearing, or more specifically, overhearing things you’re not meant to.

    His parents sound inspiring too, by not placing limits on what he could do or not do.

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  4. This sounds really interesting! And coming from a family where there is quite a lot of congenital deafness, and where nobody (as far as I know) can sign, I sometimes find the massive barrier between hearing and deaf people described in some of the memoirs you review a bit perplexing. My nan and my uncle seem to have got on perfectly well with their (hearing) spouses, at their jobs, etc. I suspect that Kisor’s perspective would be a lot more familiar to them than some of these others.

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      • Well, my nan is no longer with us and my uncle and I are not in the habit of recommending books to each other! However, if it ever comes up I will ask him what he thinks.

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          • I do know a little bit of Makaton, which is the sign language I am most likely to encounter in my own patient group! All I know in BSL is introducing myself and asking someone their name/how they are, but I think I would get muddled with Makaton if I went much further. But I am not still involved with direct patient care, so very rarely use it now.

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  5. This sounds like a fascinating memoir. I wonder what his parents would decide if they were having to choose now? It sounds like they were supportive parents who wanted to give him every opportunity possible.

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    • I do love that the last two memoirs that I’ve read by deaf authors include extremely supportive parents, not just because their child is deaf, but supportive in general. We don’t read that often from any kind of author, deaf or not. And actually, if you scroll down, you’ll see that he left a comment! He says he’s in his 90s now. ☺️

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      • There’s an impression here of loving parents who were doing their best with the information they had. I imagine they would make different choices now but this sounds a lot more uplifting than the memoirs where it seems like parents are actively not caring about what might be best for their kids.

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  6. My ears are burning, so to speak. Thank you for your careful and thoughtful remarks. By the way, a third edition of Pig has just been published. It brings the techy stuff up to date as well as the continued evolution of my thoughts about ASL and Deaf culture. And it discusses the challenges of life in a retirement community where 90 per cent of my fellow geezers have hearing loss and can’t understand deaf speech.

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    • Mr. Kisor, I am absolutely honored that you took time to read my little old review. I had hoped you I would be able to reach out to you in some way because I love interacting with authors, and your book also gave me new perspective on my work as an interpreter. How people feel about the way others see them is worth paying attention to. Knowing we don’t need to care what others think is also freeing! I myself struggle because I am hard of heard and an interpreter. Where do I fit in? It doesn’t matter, I have learned, so long as I figure out what my limitations are and go for the stuff I am absolutely capable of doing. Thank you again, and I hope everyone is well!

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  8. Loved this post Melanie. It reminded me a little of Jessica White, whom Bill and I have written about, because she became deaf around 3 through meningitis as well, though, as I recollect, the treatment. And she is an oralist, but has started learning signing well into adulthood. Not that she’s old. She’s a few decades younger than Kisor, but a bit older than you!! I have read two of her hybrid memoirs – Hearing Maud, and Silence is my habitat.

    I also love Kisor’s parents’ attitude regarding “Only when I had tried them and failed could they be set aside as impossibilities.” This is a not uncommon issue facing any parents of children with any real or potential ability issues. We were told my son would never be able to play piano because his prematurity (8 weeks) had affected his fine motor skills! (They were a bit slow to develop.) Well, I completely forgot that and when he was around 4 or 5 I enrolled him in music classes. He went on to play piano and guitar. He’s not a professional but that’s not because of his prematurity! No parent should presume a child can’t do something until it is proven otherwise. Exceptions, of course, being something that might put them in some sort of danger, but simply saying you can’t do something because you have XXX is not on.

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    • I’ve also read Jessica White, and I have her new book on my TBR. I find the journey people go through on deciding a linguistic modality fascinating. My college education for interpreting strongly emphasized Capital D Deaf all the way, but as I get out there, I find that there are so many identities, modalities, feelings about speaking, signing, hearing, etc. that I’m glad I have read memoirs like Kisor’s and, recently, Kalb’s because it gives me more insight into the people who may hire me for my services, which makes me better at my job.

      And yes, it is the treatment for meningitis that causes deafness. Basically, the fever gets so high that you will die, but the medicine is so strong that it destroys the nerves needed for hearing.

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      • It sounds like the course could be a little more inclusive? I know it was a sign language course but it feels like it was a bit political too? Anyhow it’s great that these books are out there which can round out the experience and that you are open to learning from them – which doesn’t surprise me. I think you will like Jessica’s book because there’s a lot there about her journey.

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        • It’s absolutely political in the same way that teachers of any culture from the culture are political because they exist. There is a whole history of Deaf people building schools and communities, and then hearing people taking over those institutions, firing the Deaf teachers, and forcing Deaf children to try and speak, which cost them years of educational opportunity. Instead of learning math, they’re learning speech. Instead of learning social studies, they’re learning speech. In fact, the assumption was that Deaf people could not be educated, so they were streamlined into manual labor even while in school. Imagine colonization, but the people colonized are Deaf. Stripping language, culture, norms, etc. Put to work in menial labor. Therefore, when you meet someone who is Deaf and comes from generations of Deaf family members, this is their heritage, not hearing loss, not a medical situation, not a disability. On the other hand, 90% of infants born deaf have hearing parents, so parents are encouraged to make their child as “normal” as possible in hearing society by spending time in speech therapy, having surgeries, learning to be more easily understood by English speakers. I mean, even in Australia, you guys acknowledge the Aboriginal names of places rather than the English names, even though it’s easier to say the English names. What if that same mindset were applied by all English speakers to all Deaf users of ASL?

          There is actually a new movie that I would love for folks to check out. You can see an interview with the Deaf executive producer of the film here: https://abilitymagazine.com/nyle-dimarco-on-deaf-history-inclusion-and-justice/

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          • Yes, I do understand this and how people with disabilities have been treated as lesser and as incapable of living a regular life… but, I do belief deafness is a disability. If it weren’t we wouldn’t have evolved to be hearing. The problem is the assumptions made and the limitations imposed and, as you say, the not listening to people themselves – whether they be deaf, First Nations, paraplegic, whatever – about what they want, need, can do. It’s the taking over, the we know best mindset. I think it’s very hard for hearing parents of deaf children. Parenting is hard enough. I hate the idea of them being demonised for doing their best. Even if their best turns out not to be the best course.

            BTW Someone asserted to me the other day that sign language was universal but I said that American sign language was not the same as Australian . That’s right isn’t it?

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            • You are correct, sign language is not universal. There are tons of them. There is a “universal sign language” that was developed to communicate at conferences with participants from across the globe, but it’s not actually a language. It’s a communication bridge of sorts. When I watch an Australian signer or Mexican signer or Puerto Rican signer, I have no clue what they are communicating.

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            • Also, I recently saw a post by a disability activist who asked people to consider what disability even means. If you did not have access to glasses, but you can’t see without glasses, you have a disability. The only difference is the way in which society perceives that disability. I guess what I’m trying to say is when people are members of deaf culture, which means that they have common ways of doing, communicating, traditions, and history, just like any other culture, I’m not going to label them disabled when they are adamant that they are not disabled. It’s not up to me to decide, especially when people use The word disabled to refer to anything that makes them think that life would be significantly different if they had it: a wheelchair, a walker, deafness, blindness, etc. Most Deaf people I’ve encountered in my community wouldn’t even consider something that would make them hearing. They do not want to be hearing.

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              • Thanks Melanie … I will leave it there, because while I understand how “they” feel, and to some degree why (though I can’t presume to know of course), I think there is a reality that can’t be ignored. I would agree that if I didn’t have access to my glasses I would consider myself disabled. There are things I can not do without my glasses, though right now few of them would be seriously limiting (eg I have passed my driver’s licence eye test without my glasses so I could drive without them. BUT it won’t be long I expect where I will fail that test without the glasses).

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  9. Oh this does sound like a good book. And honestly, maybe it’s just because where I’m at right now in my personal life, but god bless Debby, she sounds like a true gem! Typing up her husband’s notes, etc. I would be hard for me to not jump in and want to conduct the interview myself, especially when the speaker would leave these cliffhangers, but her husband wouldn’t know until afterwards was juicy tidbits came up…

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    • Kisor always acknowledges the work Debby did and was thankful because he knew it wasn’t her job. It’s one of the reasons I respect him as an author. He’s honest about the support he received. In fact, I applaud him for acknowledging having so much support because I think that we all need to accept support, feel comfortable asking for support, and be willing to offer support. In America, we certainly want to do everything by ourselves, and that’s dangerous.

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