As a child, Matt Hay didn’t know his hearing wasn’t the way everyone else processed sound—because of the workarounds he did to fit in, even the school nurse didn’t catch his condition at the annual hearing and vision checks. But by the time he was a prospective college student and couldn’t pass the entrance requirements for West Point, Hay’s condition, generated by a tumor, was unavoidable: his hearing was going, and fast.
A personal soundtrack was Hay’s determined compensation for his condition. As a typical Midwestern kid growing up in the 1980s whose life events were pegged to pop music, Hay planned to commit his favorite songs to memory. He prepared a mental playlist of the bands he loved and created a way to tap into his most resonant memories. And the track he needed to cement most clearly? The one he and his new girlfriend, Nora—the love of his life—listened to in the car on their first date.
Made vivid with references to instantly recognizable songs, Soundtrack of Silence asks readers to run the soundtrack of their own lives through their minds. It’s an involving memoir of loss and disability, and, ultimately, a both unique and universal love story.
Soundtrack of Silence by Matt Hay will be published January 9, 2024. St. Martin's Press provided an early galley for review.
Hearing loss is something with which I was familiar due to family member. I also was well-acquainted with the world of the hearing impaired thanks to my college years. The Rochester Institute of Technology campus was shared with the National Technical Institute for the Deaf so I learned a bit of sign-language during those years and was the chairperson for the Deaf Awareness committee of our student orientation service one year. So, the description of Hay's book really spoke to me when I first saw it.
Like Hay, I often match songs and lyrics to key moments in my life. That really made his message have a strong resonance with me. Plus, anyone who references Prince's 7 on the first page of their book is automatically a kindred soul to me. Some of the medical details unnerved me, but that's more about my nature than how they were presented (which was in a very understandable way).
Written in a friendly and approachable manner, Hay's words are touching and informative. His story has a lot to offer readers; it is a reminder of how we can sometimes take things in life for granted.
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