White Noise: Text and Criticism

Winner of the National Book Award in 1985, White Noise is the story of Jack and Babette and their children from their six or so various marriages. They live in a college town where Jack is Professor of Hitler Studies (and conceals the fact that he does not speak a word of German), and Babette teaches posture and volunteers by reading from the tabloids to a group of elderly shut-ins. They are happy enough until a deadly toxic accident and Babette's addiction to an experimental drug make Jake question everything. White Noise is considered a postmodern classic and its unfolding of themes of consumerism, family and divorce, and technology as a deadly threat have attracted the attention of literary scholars since its publication. This Viking Critical Library edition, prepared by scholar Mark Osteen, is the only edition of White Noise that contains the entire text along with an extensive critical apparatus, including a critical introduction, selected essays on the author, the work and its themes, reviews, a chronology of DeLillo's life and work, a list of discussion topics, and a selected bibliography.

Winner of the 1985 National Book Award

Winner of the National Book Award in 1985, Don DeLillo's novel about an ultramodern family bound by love and remarriage, shopping and television, is a postmodern masterpiece. The Viking Critical Library edition of White Noise contains the complete text of the novel along with extensive critical and contextual material including a critical introduction by DeLillo scholar Mark Osteen; published interviews with DeLillo on White Noise, including a Paris Review interview by Adam Begley; relevant excerpts from other works by DeLillo; reportage of current events from the time of publication; selected reviews of White Noise by Diane Johnson, Pico lyer, and others; critical essays on White Noise by Frank Lentricchia, Arthur M. Saltzman, Tom LeClair, Paul Maltby, and other scholars; a chronology of DeLillo's life and work, a list of topics for discussion and papers, and a bibliography.

Flooring readers with his complex, intelligent evocations of modern-day America and the philosophical challenges of living in it, Don DeLillo swiftly established himself as an important writer. His wide-ranging, somewhat strange novels go less for the emotions than for the reader's very interpretations of reality.