trade-size paperback.

from the back cover:
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.

*~*~*~*
Clearly, I've missed something here. Blurbs of the highest praise on the back cover, winning a national prize, being on the 1001 books you must read list - I don't see it. I didn't even find it clever; I'm leaning more towards 'theatre of the absurd'.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Added to jsmeltser's 1001 Books to Read bookbox.

Taken from my 1001 bookbox. Thanks, waterfalling!

Headed back out in my bookbox...

I read this book back in 2007, and wrote the following about it:
Everything marches on, on, on to death and you can either accept the inevitability of that fact and move on, or you can fear it. Just as the cloud of chemicals rises up into the sky and sends everyone flying in fear from their homes, people also flee death. They don't want to talk about it, and they distance themselves in an effort to avoid it. Eventually the chemical cloud is gone, but the remains in the atmosphere add brilliant color to the atmosphere. Does our awareness of death ultimately add beauty to our lives, as suggested by one school of thought? Does our awareness of death instead allow it to remain and fester to the point that it kills us? Is that why we die, because we know we will?
We're all obsessed with it, because it's the one certainty. All of DeLillo's characters worry over death, be it how others die, when they'll die, or just the fact that death exists in our world.

One character that will probably always exist in my mind is a Catholic nun who Gladney meets in the middle of the night. She tells him that she doesn't believe in God or an afterlife, not at all, but she must appear to believe because the non-believers need someone who believes to oppose. If they didn't have her, they'd fall apart.

Hmmm. This is an interesting book, and a fascinating book, but I don't think I particularly enjoyed it. Well, not all literature is fun.

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This is book no. 245 on the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" list.

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This book enjoyed a brief visit in San Jose, CA before continuing its journey with jsmeltser's 1001 Books Bookbox!

I enjoyed this one. I read it while in possession of the bookbox and am putting it back in the box to go to the next person. I will look for my books by DeLillo.

Yet another classic, albeit a modern classic, that I have not read.

Off to a new reader!