Mini-view: The Hearing Test

That novel your MFA workshop would've fawned over

The Hearing Test is a slim debut novel following the year in the life of a young artist who wakes one morning with tinnitus and Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSHL) in her right hear.

Nerd Sara Interjection: SSHL is a rare medical event where one’s cochlear IHCs just, quit. Cause range from autoimmune and viral attack, to head injury, ototoxic medication, or sometimes reasons unknown. SSHL can happen at any age, but usually occurs in people older than our narrator. Often it can be improved with medications; sometimes it stays or worsens. In short, a lot of mystery!

Anyway—our protagonist goes to the doctor, and in the face of more tests and trials, and with the fear of future, fuller deafness as a pall over the plot, she decides to record a year of her New York life.

Honestly, “plot” might be a bit too heavy a word here. This is not a Story novel, but a Thought one—discursive, atmospheric, stream-of-vignettes. Literary™. I can very clearly envision being in this MFA workshop, and the fawning that would have occurred over this manuscript, which I don’t necessarily mean as a knock, but more as a vibe descriptor.)