What is Visible

American author Kimberly Elkins’s biographical historical fiction, What is Visible (2014), tells the story of the real-life historical figure Laura Bridgman. Fifty years before the much more well-known Helen Keller, Bridgman became the first deaf-blind American child to learn to read and communicate. At the age of two, scarlet fever robbed Bridgman of four of her five senses: sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Under the tutelage of the prominent physician and abolitionist Samuel Gridley Howe, Bridgman learned to read in Braille and communicate using Charles-Michel de l'Epee's "manual alphabet." What is Visible was selected as a New York Times Book Review "Editor's Choice" and was named "the most inspirational book of 2014" by Woman's Day magazine.

The novel begins a year before Bridgman's death in 1888. Bridgman meets Helen Keller, a deaf-blind eight-year-old who a year earlier had begun lessons with Bridgman's friend, the educator Anne Sullivan. Bridgman is admittedly a bit annoyed by the busy-handed Helen, though she is also uniquely empathetic to the girl's condition. Next, the narrative flashes back to 1842; Bridgman is twelve when the popular English author Charles Dickens visits Howe's Perkins School for the Blind where he is eager to meet Bridgman. Dickens publishes a record of his experience with Bridgman in his book, American Notes: "Her social feelings, and her affections, are very strong; and when she is sitting at work, or by the side of one of her little friends, she will break off from her task every few moments, to hug and kiss them with an earnestness and warmth that is touching to behold. When left alone, she occupies and apparently amuses herself, and seems quite content; and so strong seems to be the natural tendency of thought to put on the garb of language, that she often soliloquizes in the finger language, slow and tedious as it is. But it is only when alone, that she is quiet; for if she becomes sensible of the presence of anyone near her, she is restless until she can sit close beside them, hold their hand, and converse with them by sign.”

The publication of Dickens's book turns Bridgman into an overnight celebrity and one of the most popular individuals of her time. Howe opens up the Perkins School to the public on Saturdays and thousands visit, eager to watch Bridgman read or yell out locations so she could point out locations on a Braille map. Although these may seem like cheap parlor tricks, Bridgman adores the attention. "Perhaps there are not three living women whose names are more widely known than Laura Bridgman's," Howe says, "and there is not one who has excited so much sympathy and interest."



As Bridgman grows into a teenager, she becomes intensely attached to those few people like Howe who can communicate with her. She moves in with Howe in his private quarters, delighting in crawling into his lap and stroking his beard. Although their relationship is paternal in nature, not sexual, Bridgman becomes immensely jealous when Howe marries Julia Ward, the daughter of a wealthy banker and a writer who would go on to craft the lyrics to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," a Union rallying cry during the Civil War. Despondent over Howe's marriage, Bridgman tries but fails to stow away on the ship carrying her teacher and his new bride away on their honeymoon.

After this incident, Bridgman is forced to move back to the main dormitory at the school where she reads, does chores, and communicates with teachers and students. With no other sense but touch, Bridgman is understandably desperate for physical intimacy. Unfortunately, most of the students and teachers at the school are women, and the social mores of Victorian Era America strictly forbid homosexual activity.

As the book goes on, the narrative shifts between Bridgman's story and those of other characters in her or Howe's orbit. For example, the reader learns more about Julia—frequently referred to as "Diva Julia"—who is jealous of the attention Howe showers on his blind students. Julia is described as having a "physical distaste for the abnormal and defective" and a "natural shrinking from the blind and other defectives with whom she was often thrown."



At age sixteen, the collective emotional weight of the abandonment of Howe and various other teachers causes Bridgman to suffer from anorexia, dropping from 113 pounds to 79 pounds in a short time-span. Her new teacher, the gentle Sarah Wight, feeling responsible for Bridgman's well-being, decides to take Bridgman on a trip to see her mother, sisters, and brother in New Hampshire. The reunion helps Bridgman immensely, causing her to eat again and reach a healthy weight. She is still frequently cantankerous and stubborn, however, and eventually Wight, too, abandons her to get married.

In 1950, at the age of twenty-one and with no one left at the school who wants to bond with her or take care of her, Bridgman leaves the Perkins School to stay with her family in New Hampshire. However, when her anorexia returns, Howe arranges for her to return to the school, where she stays for the rest of her life. Though they have been emotionally estranged for many years, Howe's death in 1876 causes Bridgman enormous grief. Before his death, Howe arranges for Bridgman's financial security. In the 1880s, Bridgman befriends Anne Sullivan, a young woman at the school who later introduces her to her student Helen Keller. In 1889, at the age of fifty-nine, Bridgman takes ill and dies.

What is Visible pays homage to a largely forgotten figure of American history.