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On Nov. 2, world-renowned author T.C. Boyle, Distinguished Professor in USC College's English department, read from his new novel Talk Talk as part of the "Visions and Voices" series.

Talk Talk is the story of a deaf woman whose identity has been stolen. Because she has a very special identity — one that she has long fought to protect in the face of an indifferent hearing world — she struggles to reclaim that identity. Talk Talk is a fictional meditation not only on difference, but on the nature of identity itself, and on the role that language and acculturation play in its construction. How do we know who we are? How does deaf culture, relying as it does on visuospatial language, differ from hearing culture? How does fiction in general, and Talk Talk in particular, help readers understand the ethical importance of issues of identity, language and acculturation?

T.C. Boyle is the author of 19 books of fiction, including After the Plague (2001), Drop City (2003), The Inner Circle (2004) and Tooth and Claw (2005). He received a Ph.D. degree in 19th century British literature from the University of Iowa in 1977, an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1974 and a B.A. in English and History from SUNY Potsdam in 1968. He has been a member of USC College's English department since 1978. Boyle's books are available in more than a dozen languages. His stories have appeared in many major American magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, The Paris Review, GQ, Antaeus, Granta and McSweeney's, and he has received numerous literary awards.