Don Delillo Popular Books

Don Delillo Biography & Facts

Donald Richard "Don" DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, the complexities of language, art, the advent of the Digital Age, mathematics, politics, economics, and sports. DeLillo was already a well-regarded cult writer in 1985, when the publication of White Noise brought him widespread recognition and the National Book Award for fiction. He followed this in 1988 with Libra, a novel about the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II, about terrorism and the media's scrutiny of writers' private lives, and the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld, a historical novel that ranges in time from the dawn of the Cold War to the birth of the Internet. He was awarded the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the 2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.DeLillo has described his themes as "living in dangerous times" and "the inner life of the culture." In a 2005 interview, he said that writers "must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments... I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us." Early life and influences DeLillo was born on November 20, 1936, in New York City and grew up in an Italian Catholic family with ties to Molise, Italy, in an Italian-American neighborhood of the Bronx not far from Arthur Avenue. Reflecting on his childhood in the Bronx, DeLillo said he was "always out in the street. As a little boy I whiled away most of my time pretending to be a baseball announcer on the radio. I could think up games for hours at a time. There were eleven of us in a small house, but the close quarters were never a problem. I didn't know things any other way. We always spoke English and Italian all mixed up together. My grandmother, who lived in America for fifty years, never learned English."As a teenager, DeLillo was not interested in writing until he took a summer job as a parking attendant, where the hours spent waiting and watching over vehicles led to a lifelong reading habit. Reflecting on this period, in a 2010 interview, he stated, "I had a personal golden age of reading in my 20s and my early 30s, and then my writing began to take up so much time". Among the writers DeLillo read and was inspired by in this period were James Joyce, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Ernest Hemingway, who was a major influence on DeLillo's earliest attempts at writing in his late teens.As well as the influence of modernist fiction, DeLillo has also cited the influence of jazz music—"guys like Ornette Coleman and Mingus and Coltrane and Miles Davis"—and postwar cinema: "Antonioni and Godard and Truffaut, and then in the '70s came the Americans, many of whom were influenced by the Europeans: Kubrick, Altman, Coppola, Scorsese and so on. I don't know how they may have affected the way I write, but I do have a visual sense." Of the influence of film, particularly European cinema, on his work, DeLillo has said, "European and Asian cinemas of the 1960s shaped the way I think and feel about things. At that time I was living in New York, I didn't have much money, didn't have much work, I was living in one room...I was a man in a small room. And I went to the movies a lot, watching Bergman, Antonioni, Godard. When I was little, in the Bronx, I didn't go to the cinema, and I didn't think of the American films I saw as works of art. Perhaps, in an indirect way, cinema allowed me to become a writer." He also credits his parents' leniency and acceptance of his desire to write for encouraging him to pursue a literary career: "They ultimately trusted me to follow the course I'd chosen. This is something that happens if you're the eldest son in an Italian family: You get a certain leeway, and it worked in my case."After graduating from Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx in 1954 and from Fordham University in the Bronx with a bachelor's degree in communication arts in 1958, DeLillo took a job in advertising because he could not get one in publishing. He worked for five years as a copywriter at Ogilvy & Mather on Fifth Avenue, writing image ads for Sears Roebuck among others, working on "Print ads, very undistinguished accounts....I hadn't made the leap to television. I was just getting good at it when I left, in 1964."DeLillo published his first short story in 1960—"The River Jordan", in Epoch, Cornell University's literary magazine—and began to work on his first novel in 1966. Of the beginning of his writing career, DeLillo has said, "I did some short stories at that time but very infrequently. I quit my job just to quit. I didn't quit my job to write fiction. I just didn't want to work anymore." Reflecting in 1993 on his relatively late start in writing novels, DeLillo said, "I wish I had started earlier, but evidently I wasn't ready. First, I lacked ambition. I may have had novels in my head but very little on paper and no personal goals, no burning desire to achieve some end. Second, I didn't have a sense of what it takes to be a serious writer. It took me a long time to develop this." He cites William Gaddis's The Recognitions as a formative influence: "It was a revelation, a piece of writing with the beauty and texture of a Shakespearean monologue-or, maybe more apt, a work of Renaissance art impossibly transformed from image into words. And they were the words of a contemporary American. This, to me, was the wonder of it." Works 1970s DeLillo's inaugural decade of novel writing has been his most productive to date, resulting in the writing and publication of six novels between 1971 and 1978.He resigned from the advertising industry in 1964, moved into a modest apartment near the Queens–Midtown Tunnel ("It wasn't Paris in the 1920s, but I was happy"), and began work on his first novel. Of the early days of his writing career, he remarked: "I lived in a very minimal kind of way. My telephone would be $4.20 every month. I was paying a rent of sixty dollars a month. And I was becoming a writer. So in one sense, I was ignoring the movements of the time." His first novel, Americana, was written over four years and finally published in 1971, to modest critical praise. It concerned "a television network programmer who hits the road in search of the big picture".DeLillo revised the novel in 1989 for paperback reprinting. Reflecting on the novel later in his career, he said, "I don't think my first novel would have been published today as I submitted it. I don't think an editor would have read 50 pages of it. It was very overdone and shaggy, but two young editors saw something that seemed worth pursuing and eventually we all did some work on the book and it was published." Later st.... Discover the Don Delillo popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Don Delillo books.

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  • Gods of Wood and Stone synopsis, comments

    Gods of Wood and Stone

    Mark Di Ionno

    Two men from disparate worlds search for what constitutes a meaningful life in a searing portrait of honor and masculinity, sport and celebrity, marriage and parenthood in this “ro...

  • Letters Of Sylvia Townsend Warner synopsis, comments

    Letters Of Sylvia Townsend Warner

    S. Warner

    Very early in her career Sylvia Townsend Warner won recognition of a discerning group of writers and readers on both sides of rare imagination and originality increased with each n...

  • Americana synopsis, comments

    Americana

    Don DeLillo

    Por fin disponible de nuevo la primera y más ingeniosa novela de Don DeLillo.David Bell personifica el sueño americano. Con tan solo 28 años, es un apuesto ejecutivo de televisión ...

  • The American Nightmare synopsis, comments

    The American Nightmare

    Ozden Sozalan

    The American Nightmare: Don DeLillo's Falling Man and Cormac McCarthy's The Road presents an extensive analysis of two novels by the two most prominent contemporary American writer...

  • Jane Smiley, Jonathan Franzen, Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    Jane Smiley, Jonathan Franzen, Don DeLillo

    Jason S. Polley

    The novels of Jane Smiley, Jonathan Franzen, and Don DeLillo propose new readings of justice in contemporary American literature. Jason S. Polley argues that such distinctive write...

  • The Body Artist synopsis, comments

    The Body Artist

    Don DeLillo

    A stunning novel by the bestselling National Book Award–winning author of White Noise and Underworld.Since the publication of his first novel Americana, Don DeLillo has lived in th...

  • The Friend of the Desert synopsis, comments

    The Friend of the Desert

    Pablo d'Ors & David Shook

    Existential and curiously hypnotic, Pablo d'Ors evokes the sharp stylized prose of Bolaño, Bernhard, and DeLillo in this strange tale of one man's repeated forays into the desert, ...

  • In A Rare Time Of Rain synopsis, comments

    In A Rare Time Of Rain

    Milner Place

    Described in the Telegraph as 'Huddersfield's Melville', Milner Place has spent much of his life sailing the seven seas as a skipper of a trading boat, while also writi...

  • The Language of Self synopsis, comments

    The Language of Self

    Phill Pass

    ‘The Language of Self ’explores the portrayal of subjectivity in Don DeLillo's fiction. It proposes that his characters' conception of self is determined by the tension between a d...

  • Shelf Life synopsis, comments

    Shelf Life

    Simon Parke

    The day I was appointed Chair of the shop union was the same day the Pope was elected. There the similarities end, however. For while his elevation took place beneath the fine art ...

  • The Body Politic synopsis, comments

    The Body Politic

    Brian Platzer

    In the bestselling tradition of The Interestings and A Little Life, this “cleverly constructed and emotionally compelling” (Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation) novel follows four l...

  • Point Omega synopsis, comments

    Point Omega

    Don DeLillo

    A brief, unnerving, and exceptionally hardhitting novel about time and loss as only the bestselling and National Book Awardwinning author of White Noise and Underworld can tell it....

  • Don DeLillo after the Millennium synopsis, comments

    Don DeLillo after the Millennium

    Jacqueline A. Zubeck

    Don DeLillo after the Millennium: Currents and Currencies examines all the author’s work published in the twentyfirst century from a wide variety of critical perspectives to provid...

  • Postmodernism and its Others synopsis, comments

    Postmodernism and its Others

    Jeffrey Ebbeson

    The book analyzes Ishmael Reed [Mumbo Jumbo], Kathy Acker [The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec by Henri Toulouse Lautrec], and Don Delillo [White Noise], three authors whom critics ...

  • Death, Time and Mortality in the Later Novels of Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    Death, Time and Mortality in the Later Novels of Don DeLillo

    Philipp Wolf

    This book offers the first systematic study of death in the later novels of Don DeLillo. It focuses on Underworld to The Silence, along with his 1984 novel White Noise, in which th...

  • Libra synopsis, comments

    Libra

    Don DeLillo

    From the author of White Noise (winner of the National Book Award) and The Silence, an eerily convincing fictional speculation on the events leading up to the assassination of John...

  • Peripheralizing DeLillo synopsis, comments

    Peripheralizing DeLillo

    Thomas Travers

    Peripheralizing DeLillo tracks the historical arc of Don DeLillo's poetics as it recomposes itself across the genres of short fiction, romance, the historical novel, and the ph...

  • Don DeLillo, American Original synopsis, comments

    Don DeLillo, American Original

    Michael Naas

    Don DeLillo, American Original is a startlingly original and provocative reinterpretation of one of the most important novelists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Adopting a direct a...

  • The Complete Plays synopsis, comments

    The Complete Plays

    Christopher Marlowe

    Marlowe's seven plays dramatise the fatal lure of potent forces, whether religious, occult or erotic. In the victories of Tamburlaine, Faustus's encounters with the demonic, the i...

  • Staging Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    Staging Don DeLillo

    Rebecca Rey

    The first booklength study to focus on Don DeLillo's plays, Staging Don DeLillo brings the author's theatre works to the forefront. Rebecca Rey explores four central themes...

  • All the Beautiful People We Once Knew synopsis, comments

    All the Beautiful People We Once Knew

    Edward Carlson

    For fans of Don DeLillo and Joseph O’Neill, an enthralling debut about the one percent, what they’ll do to stay on top, and the callous gaze they turn on those below them.Burnedout...

  • Building Great Sentences synopsis, comments

    Building Great Sentences

    Brooks Landon

    Based on the bestselling series from The Great Courses, Building Great Sentences celebrates the sheer joy of languageand will forever change the way you read and write. Great writ...

  • Terrorism and Temporality in the Works of Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    Terrorism and Temporality in the Works of Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo

    James Gourley

    Terrorism and Temporality in the Works of Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo starts from a simple premise: that the events of the 11th of September 2001 must have had a major effect on...

  • The Environmental Unconscious in the Fiction of Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    The Environmental Unconscious in the Fiction of Don DeLillo

    Elise Martucci

    This book presents an ecocritical reading of DeLillo’s novels in an attempt to mediate between the seemingly incompatible influences of postmodernism and environmentalism. Mar...

  • The Irresponsible Self synopsis, comments

    The Irresponsible Self

    James Wood

    "James Wood has been called our best young critic. This is not true. He is our best critic; he thinks with a sublime ferocity."Cynthia OzickFollowing the collection The Broken Esta...

  • Innocents and Others synopsis, comments

    Innocents and Others

    Dana Spiotta

    From Dana Spiotta, the author of Wayward, Eat the Document, and Stone Arabia, “a brilliant novel…about female friendship, the limits of love and work, and costs of claiming your ri...

  • The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo

    John N. Duvall

    With the publication of his seminal novel White Noise, Don DeLillo was elevated into the pantheon of great American writers. His novels are admired and studied for their narrative ...

  • Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    Don DeLillo

    Peter Boxall

    One of the few available books of criticism on the topic, this monograph presents the fullest account to date of Don DeLillo's writing, situating his oeuvre within a wider analysis...

  • Understanding Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    Understanding Don DeLillo

    Henry Veggian

    Henry Veggian introduces readers to one of the most influential American writers of the last half century. Winner of the National Book Award, American Book Award, and the first Lib...

  • Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    Don DeLillo

    Stacey Olster

    A collection of original, stimulating interpretations of key texts by Don DeLillo, designed for students and edited and written by leading scholars in the field. The book offers ne...

  • The Place of Silence synopsis, comments

    The Place of Silence

    Christos Kakalis & Mark Dorrian

    The Place of Silence explores the poetics and politics of silence in architecture. Bringing together contributions by internationally recognized scholars in architecture and the h...

  • The Quest for Epic in Contemporary American Fiction synopsis, comments

    The Quest for Epic in Contemporary American Fiction

    Catherine Morley

    This volume explores the confluences between two types of literature in contemporary America: the novel and the epic. It analyses the tradition of the epic as it has evolved f...

  • Ekphrastic Conceptualism in Postmodern British and American Novels synopsis, comments

    Ekphrastic Conceptualism in Postmodern British and American Novels

    Jaroslaw Hetman

    The relationship between the arts has fascinated people for centuries. Discussing the ancient notion of ekphrasis, this study examines the interpenetration of literary and nonliter...

  • Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    Don DeLillo

    Kiron Ward & Katherine Da Cunha Lewin

    Don DeLillo is widely regarded as one of the most significant, and prescient, writers of our time. Since the 1960s, DeLillo's fiction has been at the cutting edge of thought on...

  • Pafko at the Wall synopsis, comments

    Pafko at the Wall

    Don DeLillo

    "There's a long drive.It's gonna be.I believe.The Giants win the pennant.The Giants win the pennant.The Giants win the pennant.The Giants win the pennant." Russ Hodges, October 3, ...

  • Don DeLillo in Context synopsis, comments

    Don DeLillo in Context

    Jesse Kavadlo

    Don DeLillo is one of the most important novelists of the late twentieth and early twentyfirst century. Yet despite DeLillo's prolific output and scholarly recognition, much of the...

  • El silenci synopsis, comments

    El silenci

    Don DeLillo

    Una novel·la sobre les conseqüències d'una apagada energètica simultània a tot el món. Un mirall del confinament.Any 2022: en Jim i la Tessa viatgen a casa d'uns amics a Nova York....

  • Libra de Don Delillo synopsis, comments

    Libra de Don Delillo

    Encyclopaedia Universalis

    Bienvenue dans la collection Les Fiches de lecture d’UniversalisOn ne sait trop s’il faut considérer Libra (1988) de l’écrivain américain Don DeLillo comme une enquête romancée, un...

  • The Self-Reflexive Art of Don DeLillo synopsis, comments

    The Self-Reflexive Art of Don DeLillo

    Graley Herren

    Don DeLillo has spent his career reflecting upon the creative processes of artists. In recent years he has become increasingly drawn to spectators and how they project and indulge ...

  • La calle Great Jones synopsis, comments

    La calle Great Jones

    Don DeLillo

    Publicación por primera vez en España de la tercera novela de Don DeLillo, de 1973, uno de sus libros más buscados.Bucky Wunderlick es una estrella del rock en la cúspide de s...

  • White Noise synopsis, comments

    White Noise

    Don DeLillo

    A brilliant satire of mass culture and the numbing effects of technology, White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, a teacher of Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Midd...

  • A Step From Cinnamon Alley synopsis, comments

    A Step From Cinnamon Alley

    Patricia Burns

    A magical love story and a richly detailed evocation of a great city.1909, and life is hard for young Poppy Powers. Her dad has disappearedgone to a season in the North somewhere a...

  • Americana synopsis, comments

    Americana

    Don DeLillo

    "DeLillo's swift, ironic, and witty crosscountry American nightmare doesn't have a dull or an unoriginal line." Rolling StoneThe first novel by Don DeLillo, author of White No...