Book Reviews
Swiller doesn't deceive either himself or us about the utility of his work…His appealing, intelligent narrative serves both as a coming of age story and as a penetrating light into one corner of a tormented continent.
Juliet Wittman - Washington Post
Unheard takes readers into several different worlds: a young deaf man's individualized perceptions, as well as the violence and poverty of a remote African village. It questions the usefulness of outsiders lending a hand to Third World cultures and is a heartfelt description of friendship and personal growth. The prologue describes Swiller and a friend cowering on the living room floor in the dark, armed with nail-encrusted two-by-fours and fighting for their lives. Chapter one, "First Day," flashes back to the beginning of the author's journey, when he joined the Peace Corps to become "an ambassador" to people who may never have seen or met a person from outside their community. His mission was to encourage the locals of Mununga, a village on the shores of Lake Mweru, Zambia, to dig wells and help improve their sanitation and health. Swiller attempted to follow the guidelines provided in his training, but soon discovered that reality and idealism were at odds. As his story progresses, corruption, dishonest village leaders, and a culture he didn't entirely understand all play a part in his coming to terms with his deafness and his understanding of who he was and just what he intended to do with his life. Swiller's experiences come to life in a way that teens can and will hear, however metaphorically. —Joanne Ligamari, Rio Linda School District, Sacramento, CA
School Library Journal
A former Peace Corps volunteer recalls his battles with deafness, bureaucracy, sex, violence and hopelessness during his mid-1990s tour in Zambia. Swiller's debut recounts adventures most extraordinary in language most ordinary. Even at moments of high emotion, danger or revulsion, he cannot seem to venture outside the tent of convention to say something novel. When, for example, an angry man chops off the leg of a boy who has stolen a single fish, Swiller can manage only, "I couldn't get my mind around it." These and other inanities decorate just about every significant moment-and there are many, for his tale is harrowing and ominous. He begins near the end, holed up in the dark at the home of his best friend Jere, both of them feebly armed, while on the other side of the door a mob of angry villagers led by a baddie named Boniface threatened to kill them. The fairly innocuous resolution comes 200 pages later, but first Swiller cuts away to fill in background about his lifelong struggles with deafness, his desultory pathway through high school, Yale and Gallaudet and his decision to join the Peace Corps. He went to Zambia to help the villagers in Mununga dig wells, but the local mores and politics were almost too much to cope with, particularly for someone who had to read lips to supplement his powerful hearing aids. He accomplished little—perhaps all that was possible. He was (falsely) accused of deflowering a local lovely, got involved with a nurse (it didn't work out), drank a lot, learned the local language, met Jere, who worked in the clinic, fended off fathers who wanted him to marry their daughters, was mugged, threatened, hit with a rock and eventually went back to America. Mediocre prose effectively blunts the powerful blows that these often shocking experiences could have delivered.
Kirkus Reviews