Soundtrack of Silence: Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life -- Matt Hay, Hardcover

An inspiring memoir of a young man who discovered he was going completely deaf just at the moment he'd fallen in love for the first time.

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--from the Eagles to Elton John, Bob Marley to Bing Crosby, U2 to Peter Frampton--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.

Author: Matt Hay
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 01/09/2024
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 7.80h x 5.60w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9781250280220

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 10/30/2023
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2023
BookPage 01/01/2024
Shelf Awareness 01/19/2024

About the Author
MATT HAY is the U.S. director of advocacy for rare diseases at Alexion Pharmaceuticals. He has served on the national board of directors for the Children's Tumor Foundation, as a certified Cochlear Corporation patient advocate, and as a development adviser for the St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf. He lives in Westfield, Indiana, with his wife/hero of more than twenty years and their three teenage children.