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Galloway is, for all intents and purposes, deaf. This has left her handicapped, but by no means disabled. Yes, she tells some horror stories. However, it is her triumphs over her adversities that resound throughout this inspiring volume. Her stories of gradually losing her hearing at age 9, coming to terms with her burgeoning sexuality, dealing with bigotry and humiliations both oblivious and intentional are told in language which allows her readers to recognize, appreciate and empathize; some may even see their complicity in society’s crime of marginalizing minorities.
The chapters in this book which affected me most profoundly were those dealing with her family. There is a scene of her mother singing while ironing her husband’s clothes, a private moment of reverie and connubial affirmation the author captures with exquisite sensitivity. Her father’s deathbed scene, the miracle of the ponds, and outpouring of love by his wife and daughters had me reading through tears. There are many stories depicted in these pages; many hard to take, others dark and humorous. The lady tells a story of being locked up in a NYC mental ward that is wickedly funny; a scene of comic hijinks and merriment worthy of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, complete with an evil (Ronald Reagan loving) head nurse.
With Mean Little deaf Queer Galloway proves adept at presenting her life’s stories with clarity and humor; she is a literary Whirling Dervish, spinning her yarns without distraction, leaving her readers conquered but not at all dizzy.
Interview: Terry Galloway is someone I should know, but don’t really. We live in the same community, share similar interests, and have many friends in common. However, when I read she was publishing a memoir called Mean Little deaf Queer, I knew I’d have to make contact with her. Two e-mails later and I had her book in hand.
What prompted you to pursue a life in the theatre?
It was either that or the assembly line at Motorola. Really. I grew up at a time when any kind of disability tagged you for the trash heap. Polio, Spina Bifida, hearing loss, vision loss –- if there was anything at all out of kilter with your body, you were considered unemployable. So, like a lot of other people with disabilities, I made or found my own jobs. The one job I loved, never tired of, and was good at happened to be performance—theater, video and (weirdly) radio, too.
I love the performance world and the people in it. Despite all the diva flare ups, it’s a cozy place to be and the work is fun, creative, energizing, and even, at times, transporting. Not very well paid though; a lot less than that assembly line.
Has being deaf been detrimental to your career, or has it provided you with that special niche that allows you to stand out?
If you mean my career in theater, you bet it was detrimental; especially when I was younger. Had I not been deaf I’m pretty sure I would have simply had the career trajectory of every other pretty girl who wanted to act. I’m chuckling because a lot of those careers go down in flames, deaf or not.
So being told “no,” by the university theater department of my dreams was maybe a good thing. It did push me in other, unexpected directions.
My early success doing alternative Shakespeare and off-beat cabarets in Texas had nothing to do with my deafness, though -- and I worked very, very hard so it would have nothing to do with my deafness. I used to cringe when reviewers marveled over it. I just didn’t want to use it to my advantage; same way with being queer. There was a time when I could have used my queer identity to my advantage but I resisted it. I didn’t want every word out of my mouth to be “deaf lesbian.” What a bore. Now I’m more relaxed about the deafness thing. Just don’t ever call me “special” or I’ll rip your fucking guts out. Now, if you are talking about my career as a writer -- well, I did get a memoir out of it.
As Mickee Faust you’ve become a local celebrity. Do you ever feel like a big fish in a small pond?
It’s a pretty small crowd that knows Faust, goes to Faust and an even smaller one that recognizes me without my rat garb on. So I don’t feel as if I’m any kind of celebrity at all. I feel as if the Rat is. But I do like feeling before, during and after a show that I know a lot of people in the audience who seem to know me. In that regard, it’s like having a very large, extended family.
In Austin I felt like a big fish in a small pond -- until the pond there got considerably bigger. Here I’m just another happy fish among fish.
You contributed an essay (“People Love Their Freaks”) to Staring Back: The Disability Experience from Inside Out edited by Kenny Fries. Was the publication of that essay what motivated you to begin working on this memoir?
No, not at all. Kenny and I went to Columbia together. He was a big supporter of my solo shows when I was doing them on the lower east side in the early 1980’s. The essay in Staring Back comes from an early draft of Heart of a Dog, the first solo show I did at American Place Theater. So I was doing autobiographical writing long before Kenny put that anthology together.
I’d say what really started me in the direction of a memoir was a request I got to write a personal essay about my relationship with my mother for a book called Every Woman I’ve Ever Loved – Lesbians and Their Mother’s. After the book was published I did a reading of my essay at a writers’ retreat. The weekend I returned home, my sweetie, Donna Marie, translated a phone message from Colleen Mohyde, an agent at the Doe Coover Agency in Boston. A writer she represents who’d heard me read the piece, had called her up and said, “you need to meet this woman.” So at Colleen’s invitation I flew up to New York and, over drinks at a hotel bar, she proposed that she take me on as her client and I start writing a memoir. She asked me then how soon I could get it written. And I said -- innocent fool that I was -- “oh, half a year.” That was seven years ago. I worked on it off and on but just couldn’t get into it. I had other fish to fry.
Then two and a half years ago, my Dad died. And I couldn’t bear it. And I think I started writing in earnest so I could keep him near me, keep all our family memories and dreams near me.
Has being deaf influenced the content and style of your writing?
Oh yeah. When I read my own stuff I think “wow, that’s a deaf voice all right,” in that the language is hard won and it has its quirks. I tend to write as I speak, in carefully constructed iambic pentameter. And see, I always wanted to talk tough, get the bullies off my back by either breathing fire or being icily removed. So sometimes I see that influence there as well. I find language to be so intimidating -- spoken language in particular -- that sometimes I’m more formal with words than I need to be.
Which writers would you say have had the biggest influence on you and your work?
Oh, boy. Lots. Shakespeare more than anyone -- that iambic pentameter I mentioned. Joe Orton, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Woodhouse, Louis Carol for the humor. Louisa May Alcott for the sentiment. Poets like Yeats, Plath, Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, Theodore Roethke, and John Crowe Ransom. The Warner Bros and the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon crews. Rebecca West - one book, The Fountain Overflows. Harper Lee - one book, and you know which one that is. There are many local writers that I love to read, to many to name them all. But the writers I return to again and again besides Shakespeare are Joyce Cary, Flannery O’ Conner, and Alice Munro.
When they make the movie of Mean Little deaf Queer who would you like to play you?
How about you in drag, Ivan? Wouldn’t that be a kick? You or George Clooney.