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White Noise
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White Noise
Author: Don DeLillo

Book Information
Publisher: Penguin Books
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 3
Rating:

ISBN-13: 9780140077025 - ISBN-10: 0140077022
Publication Date: 1/7/1986
Pages: 326


Other Versions of this Book: Hardcover, Audio Cassette

Book Description:
This is the story of a college professor and his family whose small Midwestern town is evacuated after an industrial accident. . . . Jack Gladney is a professor of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill.This is an America where no one is responsible or in control; all are receptors, receivers of stimuli, consumers. Some join Simuvac, which signs up local school children as volunteer victims in simulated evacuations. Gladney's wife, Babette, a low-key and adaptable faculty wife who reads tabloids to the blind and teaches senior citizens' classes in posture, is distinguished by her forgetfulness and her preoccupation with death.

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Top Member Book Reviews

Kiri O. (kiri) wrote on 2/18/2006...

2 member(s) found this review helpful.

Original, thought-provoking and meticulously worded for maximum effect at all times. A must-read for fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Douglas Coupland, both of whom seem to have been influenced by DeLillo's examinations of the effect of consumerism and technology on the individual in modern society.

Sharon H. (Featherzmom) wrote on 11/16/2005...

2 member(s) found this review helpful.

Very well written metaphorical exposition on our obsession with death and trying to escape it. Black humor with meaining.

KC K. (madtown) wrote on 7/8/2006...

1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Interesting - seems to hit home just how pointless and weird our lives are. Enjoyable to read.

Sarah R. wrote on 4/21/2006...

1 member(s) found this review helpful.

This is an interesting look at modern, present day life in the US.

Richard P. wrote on 3/5/2006...

1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Incoherent satire of modern academic and suburban life

Jennifer E. wrote on 12/17/2005...

1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Truly insightful book on modern day life. Gave me the chills


Please Rate these Book Reviews

Alicia M. wrote on 8/6/2009...


I loved the first half of this book. The second half...not so much. The first half was an amazing literary analysis of the perils and themes of contemporary American life. I thought from this, that I loved postmodern literature and found a great genre from which to analyze and ruminate over the problems within modern Western society. Which, I think there was, especially in Part I. Part II was interesting for its simple humor and storyline, and definitely the implicit metaphors and motifs of the "toxic event."

Part III was my least favorite part, and why this book didn't get 5 stars. The destructive and bizarre relationship between Babette and Jack was uninteresting and I couldn't have cared in least for what each of them was doing to each other. By the end of the novel, it had just gotten so weird and far fetched that I was decided in my not enjoying post modern literature. In addition, I knew DeLillo was trying to do something deep and meaningful with all the talk about death, and I believe I understood it, but it was too drawn out. The constant and obsessive yet somehow redundant thoughts about death for the last 100 pages was just a little too much for me. Perhaps I missed something of the complexity but the themes to me seemed similar. Maybe that was point in which DeLillo was then, successful, but I didn't enjoy it. Overall, it was worth a read and I'm glad I did, but I think I will be careful in what I think about a book before I'm done with it.

Buffy F. (waterfallnymph) wrote on 1/23/2007...


Fascinating.

Gr G. (ggnyc) wrote on 1/11/2006...


Winner of the American Book Award

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