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Joanne Greenberg is suffering from an image malaise. She wants to write comedy, but no one seems to think that the author of I Never Prmoised You a Rose Garden, the classic novel about schizophrenia, can be funny. Mrs. Greenberg is convinced that she has written an hilarious short story, but the powers that buy don't seem to concur. Let her, however, submit any prose on a Serious Theme and it is scooped up with alacrity.
Mrs. Greenberg's most recent book, In This Sign, a work of fiction which took three and a half years to write, presents a passionate and eloquent plea in support of sign language versus lip reading as a means of communication for the deaf. The novel is the author's first since Rose Garden, which was published in 1964. Mrs. Greenberg's other longer fiction includes The King's Persons, a chronicle of an 1190 massacre of a group of Jews in England, and The Monday Voices, an exploration of the overworked world of rehabilitation counseling.
Heavy stuff? Only in subject matter. Mrs. Greenberg is a very special writer whose Weltanschauung is all-encompassing and whose empathy knows no bounds. She is able in her prose to liberate the inextricable and transform it into something real and reasonable. Witness the two worlds of the schizophrenic Deborah in Rose Garden. And she is a simple writer in the classic way: Her books are wonderfully accessible despite subject matter that frequently calls for technical understanding.
The unusual success of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a splendid case in point. When it was released in hardcover, reviews were favorable, sales were minimal. An inexpensive paperback edition