Alandras Lilacs Book Report

The book Alandra’s Lilacs starts off introducing one of the main characters, and author Tressa Browers. She becomes pregnant with her longtime boyfriend Lyndle Paul Benjamin Jr. or more commonly known as “Sug”. They soon get married and became pregnant with their first child, a son, who will be named Lyn Alan. Unfortunately, the baby doesn’t survive and dies shortly after his birth. Tressa and Sug desperately wanted to have a child together and shortly thereafter the death of their first child, become pregnant with their second child.
In May of 1967, their second child was born, a healthy baby girl, named Alandra, or “Landy” for short. Tressa had become close friends with Sug’s cousin’s wife, Linda. Linda had a three year old daughter named Joy who was deaf. Tressa noticed some of the same mannerisms between the two young girls and shortly after started becoming suspicious and considering the possibility of her own daughter’s deafness. She knew that during Linda’s pregnancy she had been exposed to the measles and also recalled the same ailment during her own and considered that a cause for concern. She told many people of her suspicions of her daughter being deaf including family and Landy’s pediatrician and everyone dismissed her in the same way. The doctor told her to come back in a year if she still had the same suspicions.
She returned to see the pediatrician after the year, and she still had the same assumptions about Landy’s hearing. The doctor instructed her to make an appointment to see a doctor specializing in the ears, nose, and throat. At this time, Tressa was pregnant and had her third child, a son, named Lyndle Paul III. He was Tressa’s second child that didn’t live beyond the delivery room. After visiting the ears, nose, and throat doctor and conducting several tests he told her that, “She is stone deaf”. Her condition is known as “nerve deafness” and there is no way to correct it. He also added that she will never be able to