13 Portrait of the (Working) Writer as Blind (TPE Hyperlinked Endnotes)

IN the previous chapter, “Sanctified by Affliction, or Not,” Godin discusses the discrimination and biases felt by many blind people in their personal lives—from dating and marriage and children—to the lack of representations in the media that contribute to those prejudices. In this chapter “Portrait of the (Working) Writer as Blind,” She introduces the professional prejudices that so many of us face when seeking gainful employment. The working writer is a stand-in for people of all professions trying to obtain work in a society that systemically discounts our abilities.

Here we meet professional writers such as (Laurie) Alice Eakes and  Jim Knipfel, and compare their struggles with those of other blind people trying hard to enter an ableist and discriminatory workforce. WE also revisit the work of historian, novelist, and wrestler, Jacob Twersky, whom we first encountered in “Out, Vile Jelly!” In his darkly realistic novel, The Face of the Deep (1953), we glimpse how much has change and how much has stayed the same for blind people seeking gainful employment.

Portrait of the (Working) Writer as Blind Endnotes

1. Kendrick, “Country of the Blind.” This harsh review takes its title from H. G. Wells’s story “The Country of the Blind,” and begins: “My admiration for Jacob Twersky’s mental and physical achievements against the crushing handicap of blindness is very I wish that I could honestly extend that admiration to any portion of ‘The Face of the Deep.’”
2. Kendrick, “Country of the Blind.”
3. Twersky, The Face of the Deep,
4. Twersky, The Face of the Deep, 329–30.
5. Twersky, The Face of the Deep,
6. Twersky, The Sound of the Walls,
7. Laurie Alice Eakes, Interview with Leona Godin.
8. Eakes, “Blind People Read We Write Them, Too.”
9. Lee & Low, “Where Is the Diversity in Publishing? The 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey ”
10. Knipfel, “All the World’s a Stage.”
11. Cripple Punk, “Principles of Cripple Punk.” Sadly, the young artist who founded the Cripple Punk movement took their own life on November 9, 2017, as announced on the Cripple Punk Tumblr site in “Message from Tai’s Family.”
12. Knipfel, “All the World’s a Stage.”
13. Knipfel, “The Cliff.” (Coming soon!)
14. Knipfel, “The Cliff.” I recently heard from an NYC blind friend, who has no cognitive disability, that he works in a mop factory. They do pay above minimum wage and employ blind people with little or no vision. He told me that he does not use his eyes at all, in fact he closes them so that the dust does not get in them. When I asked if they provided goggles, he said they had to bring them from home if they wanted to use them.
15. Knipfel, “The Cliff.”
16. Knipfel, “The Cliff.”
17. Young, “Disabled Queer Poet Jillian Weise Upends Ableist Assumptions in Cyborg Detective.”
18. This smart cane is called the WeWALK, and was developed by a Turkish blind I think all the knee-jerk uncritical articles such as the Bored Panda one that so many friends posted on my timeline last September (“Blind Engineer Invents a ‘Smart Cane’ That Uses Google Maps to Help Blind People Navigate”) actually hurt his cause, making the whole thing feel like a bit of a joke in the blind community. But the WeWALK is still going and perhaps I’ll get a chance to try one out one of these days, and write about it, too.

Face of the Deep Letter to the Editor

Godin is not the only one to appreciate The Face of the Deep. We were heartened to find this Letter to the Editor in the New York Times Time Machine published in 1953 as a rebuttal to the harsh New York Times book review of a few months earlier…

To the Editor ;

IT is important for sighted readers of the Book Review to know that in contrast to the opinion of Baynard Kendrick who reviewed “The Face of the Deep,’’ there are others professionally familiar with literature for and by the blind, and with the work of agencies for the blind and their personnel, who honestly believe that Jacob Twersky’s novel is a brilliant, truthful evocation of the world of the blind. As literature the book is unique—in fact a pioneer landmark in fiction by a blind writer about the terra incognita of the “country of the blind” and those who inhabit it.

* * *

Jacob Fried.

New York City.

Published: July 12, 1953 Copyright © The New York Times

ALUMNUS, PROFESSOR, ATHLETE, ADVOCATE JACOB TWERSKY ‘43

(Thanks to Twersky’s daughter, Laura, for this 2020 article from the CUNY alumnae bulletin that we used for our featured image.)

At a time of challenges for all and unusual occurrences such as the cancellation or postponement of sports seasons and the Olympics, the story of a City College legend who was an Immigrant, alumnus, professor, athlete, Hall of Famer and Inspirational Icon for many.