White Noise

Front Cover
Penguin, Jun 1, 1999 - Fiction - 336 pages
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER •�An “eerie, brilliant, and touching” (The New York Times) modern classic about mass culture and the numbing effects of technology.

“Tremendously funny . . . A stunning performance from one of our most intelligent novelists.”—The New Republic

The inspiration for the award-winning major motion picture starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig

Jack Gladney teaches Hitler Studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America where his colleagues include New York expatriates who want to immerse themselves in “American magic and dread.” Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by their love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the usual rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism.
�
Then a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives, an “airborne toxic event” unleashed by an industrial accident. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the “white noise” engulfing the Gladney family—radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings—pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous.

Selected pages

Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
5
Section 3
9
Section 4
14
Section 5
18
Section 6
22
Section 7
27
Section 8
31
Section 20
107
Section 21
159
Section 22
165
Section 23
175
Section 24
181
Section 25
194
Section 26
209
Section 27
213

Section 9
35
Section 10
41
Section 11
47
Section 12
54
Section 13
59
Section 14
61
Section 15
75
Section 16
80
Section 17
85
Section 18
94
Section 19
98
Section 28
220
Section 29
226
Section 30
231
Section 31
245
Section 32
251
Section 33
259
Section 34
269
Section 35
282
Section 36
290
Section 37
306
Copyright

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Common terms and phrases

appeared Babette began believe body building called carried City close cloud coming dark dead death Denise doctor don't door Dylar entered event eyes face fear feel felt German give Gray half hand happen head heard Heinrich Hitler human It's Jack keep kids kind knew leave less light listen live look mean mind minutes mother moved Murray nature never night once passed past person radio rain running seemed sense side sitting sleep someone sound speak standing Steffie steps street sure talk tell That's There's things thought told took trying turned voice waiting walked watched whole Wilder window woman women wonder

About the author (1999)

Don DeLillo has written seventeen novels, including White Noise, which won the National Book Award. It was followed by Libra, his bestselling novel about the assassination of President Kennedy; Mao II, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; and the bestselling Underworld, which in 2000 won the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the most distinguished work of fiction published in the prior five years. In 1999, DeLillo was awarded the Jerusalem Prize, given to a writer whose work expresses the theme of freedom of the individual in society. His other books include the novels Cosmopolis, Falling Man, and Point Omega and the story collection The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories. He has also written occasional essays and three stage plays. In 2010 DeLillo became the third author to receive the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. He was awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2013.

Bibliographic information

TitleWhite Noise
Penguin great books of the 20th century
AuthorDon DeLillo
Editionreprint
PublisherPenguin, 1999
ISBN1440674477, 9781440674471
Length336 pages
Subjects › 

Fiction / Classics
Fiction / Literary
Fiction / Satire
  
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