True Biz

'Original, tender, thoughtful and true. Can't wait for people to read!' Reese Witherspoon 'Part tender coming of age story, part electrifying tale of political awakening, part heartfelt love letter to Deaf culture, True Biz is a wholly a wonder' Celeste NgA transporting novel that follows a year of seismic romantic, political, and familial shifts for a teacher and her students at a boarding school for the deaf, from the acclaimed author of Girl at War.ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 - Oprah Daily, The Millions, Lit Hub, BookPageTrue biz (adj./exclamation; American Sign Language): really, seriously, definitely, real-talkTrue biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another - and changed forever.This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, disability and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.

Goodness, I can't even begin to put into words all the feelings this book provoked!...An eye-opening and heartfelt story about human connection and the beauty and adversity woven into the deaf community and culture. It is both an educational and electrifying peek into a family's life as they fight to forge connections even as the outside world threatens to close the door on them. I loved this story so much, it is not one to miss, Tender, beautiful and radiantly outraged...True Biz is moving, fast-paced and spirited... Novic, who is deaf and spent time at deaf schools researching the novel, makes an urgent and heartfelt case for the schools' importance in providing language access, and in nurturing community and a sense of self. Great stories create empathy and awareness more effectively than facts do, and this important novel should - true biz - change minds and transform the conversation., For those who loved the Oscar-winning film CODA, a boarding school for deaf students is the setting for a kaleidoscope of experience, Part tender coming of age story, part electrifying tale of political awakening, part heartfelt love letter to Deaf culture, True Biz is a wholly a wonder. Sara Novic examines the ways language can include, exclude, or help forge an identity - as well as what it means to carve out a place for yourself in a world that sees you as other, I fell in love with Sara Novic's True Biz from the first page: delicate, nuanced, playful, and at the same time sweeping in its ideas and reach, this book is a literary novel that is a page turner with a vision which will speak to many a reader in our times and beyond. Sara Novic is one of the best writers of my generation - not just *the* novelist of Deaf culture, but of human nature writ large. Do yourself a favor and get this book- it is inimitable

Sara Novic teaches in the Popular Fiction MFA program at Emerson College, and is an instructor of Deaf studies at Stockton University. Her first novel, Girl at War, won the American Library Association's Alex Award, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Novic has an MFA in fiction and literary translation from Columbia University, and lives with her family in Philadelphia.