Soundtrack of Silence: Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life

I rarely read memoirs by people I’m not already familiar with. Usually, this means I’m only reading memoirs from musicians I listen to. However, one new memoir that caught my attention is Soundtrack of Silence: Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life by Matt Hay. It’s about a Midwest man who, in his early 20s, was diagnosed with a rare condition that meant he would rapidly lose his hearing and go completely deaf. My mom has been hard of hearing since her childhood, so this topic is something that I was particularly interested in learning more about. Moreover, this memoir is infused with the power of music, another subject I always love. (I am an avid music fan, after all!) Soundtrack of Silence is an eye-opening book that I encourage everyone to read.

Special thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Review

Soundtrack of Silence: Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life is the kind of memoir everyone should read. It details the author’s experience with hearing loss, going deaf, and the many complications that came with both—all while in the prime of his life. It’s a tough read in many ways, but also one that will build deeper empathy with the deaf community. Part of why I chose to read this memoir is because my mom is hard of hearing (though not deaf). Another key reason is its infusion of music in the author’s life and recovery process. And while I was certainly excited to read this memoir, I was blown away by how powerful it truly is.

Matt Hay begins his life story with his childhood and how, unbeknownst to him and his family, he was already hard of hearing. He describes the workarounds he developed as a child and which carried him into college. However, by the time he was in his early 20s, his hearing loss would become impossible to ignore. The diagnosis was devastating… but something he tackled with bravery and determination.

He describes hearing loss and deafness so vividly. I’m fortunate enough to have good hearing, and his descriptions helped me to really get a feel for what it’s like to lose an entire sense. I also loved how he described the value of music in his life and how he worked to memorize a playlist of his favorite songs. He didn’t just memorize the lyrics and melody; he worked to make note of each instrument, each harmony, each instance of vibrato or reverb or echo. As an avid music fan, it’s hard to imagine never hearing my favorite artists or songs again, let alone any new music. I love how music became a touchstone in Matt’s life and, ultimately, a valuable part of his recovery later on.

I was fascinated to learn about Matt’s rare condition and all the treatments and surgeries that would go into not only keeping his hearing for as long as possible, but would be necessary to keep him alive and well overall. He details his various surgeries, unexpected side effects (sometimes quite significant!), and the difficult path to acclimating to his new abilities. For the squeamish readers out there, some chapters do dive into some tougher details. I hard a particularly hard time reading about his eye treatments after a necessary brain nerve surgery.

Through it all, Matt keeps a positive attitude. He also talks about his wife—without whom his journey would have been a lot harder. It’s the power of love to lift up someone in their time of need, when medical situations necessitate major life changes, and how a couple can get through it together. His family support is strong, and along with the music, is vital in his recovery.

Final Thoughts

Soundtrack of Silence is a must-read, whether or not you or someone you know has experienced hearing loss or deafness. It’s a powerful memoir about one man’s strength through it all, the family that stood beside him, and the music that carried him through deafness and more.

Get the Book

You can buy Soundtrack of Silence: Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life here – it’s available as a hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.

Soundtrack of Silence by Matt Hay
Audience	Adult
Genre	Memoir
Number of Pages	272
Format I Read	Ebook (NetGalley ARC)
Original Publication Date	January 9, 2024
Publisher	St. Martin’s Press

Official Summary

An inspiring memoir of a young man who discovered he was going completely deaf just at the moment he’d fallen in love for the first time.

As a child, Matt Hay didn’t know his hearing wasn’t the way everyone else processed sound—because of the workarounds he did to ﬁt in, even the school nurse didn’t catch his condition at the annual hearing and vision checks. But by the time he was a prospective college student and couldn’t pass the entrance requirements for West Point, Hay’s condition, generated by a tumor, was unavoidable: his hearing was going, and fast.

A personal soundtrack was Hay’s determined compensation for his condition. As a typical Midwestern kid growing up in the 1980s whose life events were pegged to pop music, Hay planned to commit his favorite songs to memory. He prepared a mental playlist of the bands he loved and created a way to tap into his most resonant memories. And the track he needed to cement most clearly? The one he and his new girlfriend, Nora—the love of his life—listened to in the car on their ﬁrst date.

Made vivid with references to instantly recognizable songs—from the Eagles to Elton John, Bob Marley to Bing Crosby, U2 to Peter Frampton—Soundtrack of Silence asks readers to run the soundtrack of their own lives through their minds. It’s an involving memoir of loss and disability, and, ultimately, a both unique and universal love story.

About the Author

MATT HAY is the U.S. Director of Advocacy for rare diseases at a biopharmaceutical company. He has served on the national board of directors for the Children’s Tumor Foundation, as a certiﬁed Cochlear Corporation patient advocate, and as a development adviser for the St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf. He lives in Westfield, Indiana, with his wife/hero of more than twenty years and their three teenage children.