Shouting Won’t Help: Why I - and 50 Million Other Americans - Can’t Hear You

Audiologists agree that we're experiencing a national epidemic of hearing loss. At present, 48 million Americans--17 percent of the population--suffer some degree of loss. More than half are under the age of fifty-five. In cases like Katherine Bouton's, who experienced sudden hearing loss at the age of thirty, the cause is unknown.

In this deftly written and deeply felt look at a widespread and widely misunderstood phenomenon, Bouton recounts her own journey into deafness--and her return to the hearing world through the miracles of technology. She speaks with doctors, audiologists, neurobiologists, and others searching for causes and a cure, as well as those who have experienced hearing loss, weaving their stories with her own. Shouting Won't Help is an engaging and informative account of what it's like to live with an invisible disability--a must-read not only for those with hearing loss, who will recognize their stories in Bouton's own, but for their families, friends, employers, and caregivers.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013

Katherine Bouton is a former editor at The New York Times, where she worked for The New York Times Magazine and The New York Times Book Review, as well as the daily Science and Culture desks. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and many other magazines and reviews. She is currently a regular reviewer and contributor to Tuesday’s Science Times section. She lives in New York City with her husband, Daniel Menaker. They have two grown children.