V-V-Voice: A Stutterer’s Odyssey

V-V-Voice: A Stutterer’s Odyssey by Scott Damian

V-V-Voice…the word sticks in the back of your throat. Your mouth shudders as your teeth grit together. You push, trying to Iget the word out. A jarring, jackhammer sound gurgles out of your mouth. Your face contorts and your body shakes as judging eyes stare at you. A shameful feeling washes over you. Your soul is forever crushed.

These are the wounding, humiliating trials that 60 million stutterers worldwide endure each and everyday…and Scott Damian is one of them.

In this gritty, raw memoir, Damian details the stirring battles he endured while searching for a solution to his inability to speak without stuttering.

From his haunting blue-collar childhood in New Orleans to the physical and psychological scars that led Damian down a path of self-destructive behavior that was as crippling as the stuttering itself, V-V-Voice: A Stutterer's Odyssey chronicles the struggles of one stutterer to do the unimaginable; to use his voice as an actor and a writer, and help others find their own.

Available at Amazon.com

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CELEBRITY FOCUS

Winston Churchill

Seeking to "remove Winston Churchill's stutter by second guessing the diagnosis" indicates neither a truthful retelling of history nor an informed opinion about a complex speech disorder, say experts in the field of speech-language pathology.

Recent news reports that quote Dr. John Mather, a Washington physician, as saying that Churchill's stutter "is a lie" brought adamant critical response from specialists in the field of stuttering and fluency disorders.

Bill Withers

While Bill Withers has long been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter, many people probably didn’t realize he stuttered. He passed away on March 30, 2020.

Born in 1938 in Slab Fork, W.V., Withers was the youngest of six children. When his father died when Withers was small, he was raised by his mother and grandmother, both of whom worked as domestics.

Marilyn Monroe

From Edward S. Herrington's letter to Southcoasttoday.com

I am writing in response to "The importance of voice" (May 29), which mentioned that famous actor James Earl Jones struggled with stuttering. Another famous voice that you cited was the trademark breathy voice of Marilyn Monroe; however, you did not make mention of the fact that Marilyn Monroe also struggled with stuttering at various points in her life, sometimes very painfully.

Frank Wolf

This Virginian congressman has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1981. The longtime supporter of the Stuttering Foundation drew national attention to childhood stuttering in 2006 when he submitted an article about Tiger Woods from the SFA newsletter to the Congressional Record. The congressman is featured in the Stuttering Foundation's Famous People Who Stutter brochure.

James Earl Jones

Actor James Earl Jones, a Broadway, television and movie star, is well-known for his voice as Darth Vader in Star Wars and his book Voices and Silences. Jones has spoken some of the most memorable lines in the history of American film, but the man known for his voice was once afflicted with a severe stutter.