Can an English-speaking listener even make use of this audiobook edition of Thunder Dog before checking one crucial detail first? The listing's own synopsis is written entirely in Swedish, and the language field on the listing confirms it: this particular edition of Michael Hingson's September 11 memoir is a Swedish-language production from the Scandinavian publisher Saga Egmont, not an English recording. At six hours and forty-four minutes, it is a fairly compact memoir for a story that covers not just a single morning but, by the synopsis's own framing, a lifetime of navigating a hearing, sighted world before that morning ever arrived.
He Saw Nothing, He Heard Everything
Once translated, the story underneath is a striking one. Hingson has been blind since birth, and the synopsis first establishes an ordinary partnership: he and his loyal guide dog, Roselle, navigating everyday life together long before anything extraordinary happened to either of them. On the morning of September 11, 2001, that ordinary partnership carried him through the World Trade Center after no fire alarm ever sounded. He saw nothing, the synopsis states plainly, but he heard everything: huge bangs followed by shattering glass and screams, sounds that stood in for every visual detail a sighted survivor might reach for instead, and he and Roselle came through the burning building unharmed. The synopsis calls the pair's fate one of history's most tumultuous moments, and the description does not oversell it. The synopsis frames the account around a pointed question, what actually happened inside the tower while images of the attack streamed out to the rest of the world in real time, and answers it from a vantage point most retellings of that day cannot offer: someone who could not see any of it and had to rely entirely on what he heard and felt as it happened around him. That framing alone separates Thunder Dog from the wider shelf of September 11 survivor accounts, most of which lean on visual memory the synopsis makes clear Hingson never had access to in the first place.
Susy Flory Is Named Only in Swedish
Only Michael Hingson appears in the author credit on this listing, described in the synopsis as an American consultant and public speaker who experienced the World Trade Center attack up close, but the Swedish synopsis itself introduces a second writer: Susy Flory, described there as an American author with a background in journalism. Nothing in the listing's author field reflects her contribution, which is worth flagging for anyone trying to track down her other work, verify a citation, or simply wanting an accurate, complete credit before recommending the book to someone else. Saga Egmont is the publisher listed for this edition, released April 2019, and the Swedish text throughout the synopsis lines up with that credit, which together likely explain why an American memoir about a national tragedy shows up here dressed entirely in Swedish rather than in English. Dan Bratt is credited as narrator, and since the synopsis provided is not in English, this review cannot speak to how Bratt's reading actually sounds for an English-only listener, only to what the underlying story contains. That is a real limitation worth sitting with rather than glossing over: most audiobook coverage assumes a shared listening language between reviewer and reader, and this particular listing breaks that assumption before the first sentence of the description even loads. A listener fluent in Swedish is in a much better position here than a critic working only from a translated summary, and it seems more honest to say so directly than to guess at Bratt's pacing or tone from a language neither the synopsis nor the review can confirm firsthand.
One Counted Vote Has to Be a Four
Zero written reviews accompany this listing, an absence unusual enough on its own to flag before anything about ratings. A memoir built around a single documented morning and a lifetime that led up to it is exactly the kind of book that tends to generate detailed, personal reactions in a review section, and none of that reaction appears here in writing, in Swedish or otherwise. The badge shows 4.0 from a single counted vote, and with no written reviews to weigh against it, the arithmetic is as simple as this kind of math gets: that one vote has to be a 4, one point short of a perfect 5 out of 5. No larger pool of scores exists to average or reconcile, just one number standing in for one anonymous listener's reaction, with no title, no date, and no written word attached to explain it. Given the total absence of reviews, nothing here can confirm whether that lone vote reflects the Swedish narration, the English source memoir, or something else about the listing entirely. The "People with Disabilities" tag attached to this listing fits the memoir's own framing: a man blind since birth, whose account credits his guide dog's training and instinct as central to surviving that morning rather than treating Roselle as a background detail.
Bratt Narrates a Small Case Study
Swedish-speaking listeners interested in a firsthand account of surviving the September 11 attacks from inside the World Trade Center, told through the experience of a blind man and his guide dog, have real reason to seek this edition out. So does anyone specifically researching how disability memoirs get translated and distributed outside their original English-language market, since this listing is itself a small case study in that process, complete with a co-author credit that did not survive the trip intact and a rating built from a single silent vote rather than any visible consensus. English-only listeners should look for a different edition or format entirely, since nothing about this specific listing indicates an English-language recording exists here, and buying based on the title and cover alone risks a frustrating first few minutes of listening before the language mismatch becomes completely obvious to anyone who does not speak Swedish. Anyone doing research on Hingson's story for a paper, a citation, or simple curiosity should also track down Flory's contribution directly, since her name is easy to miss given how the credit is currently structured, appearing only inside the Swedish-language synopsis rather than in any field a shopper would normally check first. Thunder Dog the story earns its place in September 11 literature regardless of which language carries it to a given listener, even if this particular listing makes that clearer for some readers than for others.
The Short Version
- Read by: Dan Bratt is credited as narrator, though the Swedish-language synopsis makes it impossible to evaluate the reading for an English-only listener.
- At its heart: surviving September 11, blindness and guide dogs, an uncredited co-author
- Vibe: Tense and grounded in a single true event
- Short version: Confirm the Swedish-language edition actually works for you before buying; the survival story underneath it is worth the effort either way.
