Breaking the Sound Barrier is an autobiographical account of the life of Edgar Turner, detailing how he became deaf at a young age, managed to overcome his hearing disability and lead a normal, productive life as a student, husband, banker, father, and community volunteer.

Turner gives details of his hospitalization after being diagnosed with meningitis, his experience in loosing his hearing. He writes, “Unknown to me at the time, I had entered a world of silence from which I would never emerge.”

After attending the Spencer Tracy School and Central Institute for the Deaf for short periods of time, where he met friends who shared his disability, he was placed in the local public school district where his friend and next-door neighbor Helen helped him survive.

Turner provides an insight to how he managed to live as a deaf person in a hearing world, and concludes with his opinion on the differences between “disabled” and “handicapped.”

Persons with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities would be interested in this book.