Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words [Paperback]

STUTTERING: A Life Bound Up in Words

Marty Jezer

New York: Basic Books, A Division of Harper-Collins Publishers, 1997

Marty Jezer's much-awaited book is on the brink of publication, if it isn't
already on the stands. Marty, of course, is known throughout the stuttering
community for his clear, intelligent commentary and searching questions on
several discussion lists. Marty is a commited pacifist whose conciliatory
tone consistently rises above flame battles which remind this writer of
scenes from Star Wars. In his book he has applied his great good humor to
the story of his lifelong battle with his severe stutter, and has come out
the winner.

From a vantage point of middle-aged mellowness, Marty has taken a
clear-eyed look at what it means to be a person who stutters and what
impact his speech impediment has had on his life. He is neither vindictive
nor maudlin. He makes no attempt to hide his avoidances, his denial, or his
embarrassment under a cloak of heroism, and yet the real strength of his
honesty shows in his unwillingness to blame any individuals or much of
society for the difficulties he has experienced, difficulties which are
familiar to us all. Marty is no whiner.

The book begins and ends with a description of Marty's participation in an
experiment involving a drug that some hoped would alleviate stuttering. For
those who have dreamed of a "fluency pill" -- a regular list topic -- these
two chapters alone are worth the price of the book. But there is more, much
more, to be learned in retracing Marty's path through the minefield of life
with a stutter.

Marty's story underscores the oft-made assertion that the only thing that
differentiates those who stutter from the general population is the fact
that they stutter. Marty's loving, if somewhat competitive, family, his
school, his neighborhood, his college, and his original career goals are a
model of American life in the 1950's and 1960's. I would like to have seen
a closer look at the effects of Marty's stuttering on the people around
him, but the young Marty was a remarkably normal kid and by his own
confession didn't think about that any more than he absolutely had to.

There are some wildly funny passages in the book, ones which I think anyone
can identify with, whether stutterer or not. The hilarity and pathos of the
chapter "An Errant Elbow or an Act of God" is as gripping in its second and
third readings as it was when it first appeared in draft on The Stuttering
Homepage. And there is a description of a restaurant dinner with his family
that made this reader laugh out loud remembering the same kind of
conversation around my own parents' table, ten adults and ten monologues
only tenuously connected by a most absurd stream-of-consciousness
association.

And yet, for all the good humor and, yes, love of life in this book, Marty
delineates well the kinds of wrenching doubts and wandering detours that
plague the fumbletongued. He holds up a lot of mirrors to others of us who
have had to wrestle with the same demon - even though the demon might be
smaller and more tractable in its form. It was the little things that
grabbed me particularly: Marty's desire to be a funny person, his
recitations alone before the mirror and in the shower, a preference in
conversation to agree or to summarize rather than to bring up or change
topics. The war with the telephone. The desire, indeed, a near compulsion,
to write - and the freedom and joy of the written page where words fasten
themselves in their ordered rows and meaning is divorced from delivery.

Marty came of age at a time of great turmoil in American society. In the
eyes of at least some of us, he took a hero's stand against great
injustices and terrible lies. The entire community should be proud that
there were stutterers at the vanguard of the Antiwar and Civil Rights
movements. Not only Marty, but his friend Paul Johnson, also a person who
stutters, were instrumental in the formation of the arguments in the early
years of the Protest movement. It was Johnson who introduced Marty to the
activist's life and who helped him find his real voice as a journalist and
formulator of policy. Their actions at that time have had a lasting effect
on the shape of American society.

Marty is sure, and I will second his assertion, that the little and big
prejudices which he faced as a stutterer made him especially sensitive to
the big and bigger prejudices which spawned the Civil Rights movement. And
from there it was only a short step to seeking a fuller liberation of all
society, in the Free Speech and the Anti-War movements. That Marty could
turn his intensely personal experience of prejudice as a stutterer to
society's greater good should stand as a reminder to all of us that no
matter how bitterly we perceive our own oppression, there is great freedom
to be gained in helping others to achieve their liberation.

I could easily see _Stuttering: A Life Bound Up in Words_ as a topic of
organized discussion in self-help and group therapy sessions. Marty touches
on almost the whole range of emotion which is likely to both inspire and
trouble the person who stutters. He also delineates the process of growth,
from denial through depression to something resembling integration. He
makes it clear that one can honestly accept the fact of stuttering without
having to accept the baggage that attaches to the label "stutterer."

I would especially recommend this book to parents and "significant others"
of people who stutter. Marty's candid and unsentimental descriptions of the
way his impediment has influenced and been influenced by his feelings, his
aspirations, and his dreams should open passages to understanding for those
who feel the effect of their loved one's impediment almost as directly as
the stutterer him- or herself. This book has the potential to provide
talking points for people who are inhibited by shyness and the natural
reluctance to bring up a subject that may be painful to someone they are
close to.

As a final note, it is interesting to compare _Stuttering: A Life Bound Up
in Words_ with Wendell Johnson's little autobiography, _Because I Stutter_,
which was made available online within this past week. They make a very
interesting back-to-back read, for though about seventy years stands
between the two books, the stories are remarkably similar. The basic
message is that stuttering, though a dreadful inconvenience and even a
torment, is not necessarily a permanent roadblock to a productive,
fulfilling, interesting, and ultimately happy life.