What a weekend!
We headed out to the Oak Brook Borders on Friday night to meet Marlee Matlin at her book signing. Marlee crafted her autobiography “I’ll Scream Later” as a tell-all book and judging from the headlines of the articles swimming around, her book has revealed some surprising secrets:
Marlee Matlin Book: William Hurt Abused Me
Marlee Matlin Reveals Abusive Relationship
Babysitter’s Abuse Lead to a Life of Drugs, Violence
There was quite a crowd of people that night. Marlee began the evening by reading an excerpt from her book with Jack Jason voicing. Each of us had received wristbands when we arrived and we went up in groups of 50. Marlee looked really beautiful and was extremely gracious to everyone. I was amazed at her stamina, she signed book after book without faltering and considering that this was her fourth book signing in a week, it was amazing to see how she kept it all up until the very last book was signed.
I brought my Z-340 videophone with me and connected with Tim Rarus (Deaf President Now leader/ VP of Sales) and Sean Belanger (CSDVRS CEO) while I was waiting in line and they had a quick opportunity to chat with Marlee as well. It was so neat to see the technology at work– who could have envisioned this a few years ago?
(Photo courtesy of Dino Lomanto)
Yes, those are my younger two kids with me–David was too busy chatting with his friends to get in line. On the way home, I started reading the book and didn’t put it down until one in the morning. Later, I found out that many of my friends did the same thing after they left the bookstore– one gal stayed up through most of the night until she finished it.
I tried to figure out what was so compelling about this book, this peek inside of the life of undoubtly the most famous actress who happens to be deaf–what kept me turning page after page of this book? I came away with a sense of awe, because despite the dark chapters and the very rough parts to read through, Marlee has “chutzpah.” (Translation: bold guts!) She has that fiesty spirit inside that allows one to accomplish dream after dream. That’s what made this book and the story of her life stand out.
My favorite line from the book is simply this:
My life is rich and I am blessed, and I am grateful. That I am Deaf is just a footnote. It is a part of who I am, but far from all of who I am.