Silence Is My Habitat: Ecobiographical Essays (Jessica White, Upswell)

Silence Is My Habitat by Jessica White (A Curious Intimacy) is a collection of ecobiographical essays – stories that trace a life not through chronology alone, but also through a person’s engagement with the ecosystems that shape and surround them. Using this unique narrative approach, White explores her deafness and how it has affected her relationship to nature, capturing the Australian landscape in prose that is artful and transportive. White toes the line between creative and academic writing, weaving poetic personal reflections with scholarly references that are both relevant and engaging. Covering topics from pandemic life as a deaf person to personal reflections on an Australian outback childhood, the essays follow a nonlinear structure, jumping back and forth between events in her life. Some anecdotes occasionally meander, but never aimlessly; the context informs the narrative in the way a close friend would provide conversational backstory. White’s writing pays thoughtful homage to the scholarly literature it engages with and the deaf writers in her creative circle, as well as the deaf and disabled storytellers who came before her. Interweaving well-researched histories of Australian women with vivid depictions of changing landscapes, White mirrors these stories in her own life – particularly in the deeply felt portrayal of her relationship with her mother. The emotional intensity is palpable, drawing the reader close. 

Books+Publishing reviewer: Chloe Bleakley is a freelance reviewer and writer, currently working in libraries. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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