SOURCE: "The Bittersweet Story of a Young Stutterer," in The Boston Globe, May 24, 1989.

In the following mixed review of Dead Languages, Gilbert applauds Shields's ability to use Jeremy's stuttering as a metaphor for the contemporary problems of communication but charges that the plot lacks cohesiveness and believability.

You'd think the coming-of-age novel would have knocked itself out by now. But when the ancient theme of young blood is infused with adrenaline, it's easy to see why it's so popular among younger writers. Dead Languages, the second novel by David Shields, is a fresh, humorous growing-up tale with a bitter twist: The hero, Jeremy Zorn, is a tortured stutterer, a soulful, obsessive boy struggling in a daily battle to communicate clearly. As he narrates his history, with a wry good humor that belies his constant pain, Jeremy transforms his lifelong antagonism with language into a universal plight: the failure...