Dead Languages - Softcover

Shields, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060972912 ISBN 13: 9780060972912

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1990

Synopsis

In the face of many well-meaning, but often misguided attempts to cure him of his stutter, young Jeremy Zorn develops both an astonishing prowess as an athlete and a large vocabulary, and comes to understand the power of language

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Shields is a talented writer, and in Dead Languages he explores fertile themes with intelligence and verbal energy."--theNew York Times

From the moment his mother tries unsuccessfully to coax him into saying "Philadelphia," Jeremy Zorn's life is framed by his unwieldy attempts at articulation. Through family rituals with his word-obsessed parents and sister, failed first love, an ill-fated run for class president, as the only Jewish boy on an otherwise all-black basketball team, all of the passages of Jeremy's life are marked in some way by his stutter and his wildly off-the-mark attempts at a cure. It is only when he enters college and learns his strong-willed mother is dying that he realizes all languages, when used as hiding places for the heart, are dead ones.

"As touching and funny a rendering of adolescence as The Catcher in the Rye. . . .Dead Languages speaks to everyone who has ever struggled to articulate an emotion and failed to find the words."--Library Journal

"An astonishing and mordantly witty tour de force. David Shields, a virtuoso of the written word, manages to make the halting, self-conscious agonies of his stuttering hero into a metaphor for all our disjointed, doomed attempts at self-definition through connection. He has transcended his subject and written a book that will touch everyone who has suffered over the inadequacies of speech to sustain life and love."--Lynne Sharon Schwartz

David Shield's other books are Remote, A Handbook for Drowning, andHeroes. His stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine,Harper's, Vogue, Details, the Village Voice, and Utne Reader. He lives in Seattle, where is a professor of English at the University of Washington.

About the Author

David Shields's other books are Remote, A Handbook for Drowning, andHeroes. His stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine,Harper's, Vogue, Details, the Village Voice, and Utne Reader. He lives in Seattle, where is a professor of English at the University of Washington.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060972912
• ISBN 13: 9780060972912
• Binding: Paperback