Billy, the only deaf child in a family that could hear, was raised inside the family’s fiercely idiosyncratic and politically incorrect cocoon.  Though his family attempts to raise him like a normal child — training him to read lips instead of learning sign language —  Billy adapts brilliantly to his family’s unconventional ways without truly feeling what it’s like to be heard. It’s not until Billy meets Sylvia, a young woman on the brink of deafness, that he is finally introduced to the deaf community that his family sheltered him from his entire life. As Billy tries to find his identity among his true family, his interactions with the deaf community reveal that they are the ones who truly understand how important it is for him to be understood.