White Noise
A death-haunted professor and his blended family face a toxic disaster in a darkly comic, media-saturated world.
First published 1985
ClassicsLiterary Fiction
More about this book
Story
Jack Gladney, a college professor known for his work in Hitler studies, lives with his wife Babette and a blended household of children and stepchildren. Their daily life is full of academic talk, consumer rituals, and anxious humor, but beneath it all runs a shared fear of death.
That fear is intensified when an industrial accident releases an airborne toxic cloud over their town, forcing an evacuation and exposing Jack to possible harm. As the family tries to keep functioning, rumors, media messages, and private worries begin to reshape what they believe about safety, love, and control.
In the aftermath, Jack’s personal and family life becomes even more unsettled. The novel follows the way they cope with uncertainty, with death anxiety, and with the possibility that modern life itself is a kind of constant static that is both numbing and ominous.
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Details
- Authors
- Don DeLillo
- First published
- 1985
- Genres
- Classics, Literary Fiction, American, Contemporary, 20th Century, Science Fiction
- Subjects
- College teachers · College teachers in fiction · Death · Death in fiction · Fiction · Industrial accidents · Industrial accidents in fiction · Middle West in fiction · National Book Award Winner · Stepfamilies · Stepfamilies in fiction · award:national_book_award=1985 · award:national_book_award=fiction · open_syllabus_project · Classic Literature · Literature · American literature · American fiction (fictional works by one author) · Middle west, fiction · College teachers, fiction · Fiction, general · Delillo, don, 1936- · Reading Level-Grade 7 · Reading Level-Grade 9 · Reading Level-Grade 8 · Reading Level-Grade 11 · Reading Level-Grade 10 · Reading Level-Grade 12
- ISBN-13
- 9780143129554
[DEV NOTE: Eventually use our own synthesized data.]