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Mean little Deaf Queer

A Memoir

Author: Terry Galloway

“Terry Galloway is resilient . . . caustic, depraved, utterly disinhibited, and somehow sweetly bubbly, a beguiling raconteuse who periodically leaps onto the dinner table and stabs you with her fork.”
—Alison Bechdel

An anniversary edition of the laugh-out-loud memoir, with a new epilogue from a self-proclaimed “child freak” about family, transformation, identity, and the messiness of living

“Told with understandable rage, quirky humor, and extraordinary humanity” (Booklist), Terry Galloway’s Mean Little deaf Queer invites readers on her journey from “child-freak” to exuberant performance artist.

Born in post-WWII Germany, Galloway’s fetal nervous system was damaged when her mother was given the experimental antibiotic Mycin while pregnant.

As a child growing up in 1960s Texas, she had hallucinations and out-of-body experiences. At the age of 9, the voices of Galloway’s loved ones faded, eventually completely disappearing. It didn’t help that over this same time Galloway’s “romantic awe” of girls was evolving into “something sweaty and insistent,” despite her continued experimentation with boys.

Rather than sitting on life’s sidelines due to her disability and “otherness,” Galloway threw herself into living. She continued roughhousing with the neighborhood kids, became a standout at a camp for “crippled children,” and, years later, earned a theater scholarship to the University of Texas, all while indulging in polysexual exploits “with the tinker, the tailor, the mescaline maker.” And did she mention her nervous breakdown in New York?

Fiercely original, screamingly funny, and with a new epilogue that covers Galloway’s life over the last 15 years, including her major decision to get Cochlear implants, Mean Little deaf Queer will leave readers feeling charmed, heartbroken, and all the while thoroughly entertained.