SOURCE: A review of Dead Languages, in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 10, No. 2, Summer, 1990, pp. 276-77.

In the following review, Byrne examines the theme of survival in Dead Languages.

David Shields's Dead Languages is about survival—as a stutterer—in an overly articulate family, "a family in which language is seen as the magic key to success. Both parents are journalists…. Both are determined to make their mark upon the world with words," Jeremy Zorn's story, it would seem, begins at age four ("My family was only a family. It wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't a concentration camp. Each of us isn't the sum total of all the faults of his family. That's impossible. That can't be who we are…. My family was living in a language whereas I was dying in it …") and ends with the death of his mother ("Just a party, as Mother's will...