num_pages: 246
description: Washington State Book Award, 1990Silver Medal, Commonwealth Club of California Book Awards, 1990From 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.
language: English
title: Dead Languages
titlecomplete: Dead Languages (Graywolf Rediscovery Series)
characters: Jeremy Lovell, Gretchen, Beth Halpern
genres: Novels, Fiction, Language
ratings_count: 159
awards: awardedAt: 599644800000
name: California Book Award
category: Fiction (Silver), awardedAt: 631180800000
name: Washington State Book Award
publisher: Graywolf Press