d/Deaf and d/Dumb chronicles the author¿s dumb, ¿deaf kid¿ origins in Bayport, New York to his current life as a «young superhero» writer. Portraying the conflicting cultural worlds of hearing and Deaf, it describes his life in an in-between underworld and his identity as it alternates between being oppressed and empowered. These feelings are inescapably and forever the reality of those who live on the margins of our larger society.

Joseph Michael Valente is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at Pennsylvania State University.