Speechless is a touching memoir by Tom Lanoye about his mother’s final years. After a stroke, she—a butcher’s wife and an obsessive amateur actress—loses her ability to speak. Slowly but inevitably she deteriorates, less and less able to communicate with her loved ones. In Speechless, Tom Lanoye takes stock of his colourful childhood, his struggle with love and his role as an author. He writes of conflict with his beloved diva of a mother and the illness she so bravely fights.