Islay: A Novel

This new edition of Deaf writer Douglas Bullard’s classic utopian novel Islay, first published in 1986, promises to entertain contemporary audiences with its bold vision of the Deaf American Dream. Islay tells the story of Lyson Sulla, a Deaf man entirely despondent of the feeling that the hearing think deaf means dumb, who sets out to establish a sovereign Deaf state on an island called Islay. The novel charts Sulla’s quest across the nation to rally support and recruit citizens, and his subsequent efforts to become elected the new state’s governor. Along the way, he encounters a cast of colorful Deaf and hearing characters, among them a rival who also has his sights set on the island, a minister, a bowling alley owner, even a family of peddlers. Bullard paints his characters, protagonists and antagonists alike, with humorous but ever-honest strokes, showing the true nature of their ambitions. This unapologetic frankness, set in a unique blend of classic satire and direct, down-to-earth expression of ASL ingeniously rendered on the page, is sure to challenge and amuse all lovers of thought-provoking utopian fiction.