White Noise

Summary

Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler Studies at a small Midwestern college, navigates blended-family life, ambient consumer dread, and the surreal aftermath of an 'airborne toxic event' that drifts over his town. DeLillo's prose is both deadpan and incantatory, turning supermarkets, television, and pharmaceutical jargon into the liturgy of late-twentieth-century life. The novel became a touchstone for thinking about media saturation, fear of death, and American unreality.