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Title details for Underworld by Don DeLillo - Wait list

Underworld

A Novel

by Don DeLillo
Richard Poe
Audiobook
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Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Finalist for the National Book Award
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award
Winner of the Howell's Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books

"A great American novel, a masterpiece, a thrilling page-turner." —San Francisco Chronicle
*With a new preface by Don DeLillo on the 25th anniversary of publication*

Don DeLillo's mesmerizing novel was a major bestseller when it was published in 1997 and was the most widely reviewed novel of the year. It opens with a legendary baseball game played between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants in 1951. The home run that won the game was called the Shot Heard Round the World, and was shadowed by the terrifying news that on the same day, Russia tested its first hydrogen bomb. Underworld then tells the story of Klara Sax and Nick Shay, and of a half century of American life during the Cold War and beyond.

"A dazzling, phosphorescent work of art." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"This is a novel that draws together baseball, the Bomb, J. Edgar Hoover, waste disposal, drugs, gangs, Vietnam, fathers and sons, comic Lenny Bruce and the Cuban Missile Crisis. It also depicts passionate adultery, weapons testing, the care of aging mothers, the postwar Bronx, '60s civil rights demonstrations, advertising, graffiti artists at work, Catholic education, chess and murder. There's a viewing of a lost Eisenstein film, meditations on the Watts Tower, an evening at Truman Capote's Black & White Ball, a hot-air balloon ride, serial murders in Texas, a camping trip in the Southwest, a nun on the Internet, reflections on history, one hit (or possibly two) by the New York mob and an apparent miracle. As DeLillo says and proves, 'Everything is connected in the end.'" —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

"Underworld is an amazing performance, a novel that encompasses some five decades of history, both the hard, bright world of public events and the more subterranean world of private emotions. It is the story of one man, one family, but it is also the story of what happened to America in the second half of the 20th century." —The New York Times

"Astonishing...A benchmark of twentieth-century fiction, Underworld is stunningly beautiful in its generous humanity, locating the true power of history not in tyranny, collective political movements or history books, but inside each of us." —Greg Burkman, The Seattle Times

"It's hard to imagine a way people might better understand American life in the second half of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first than by reading Don DeLillo. The scale of his inquiry is global and historic... His work is astounding, made of stealthy blessings... it proves to my generation of writers that fiction can still do anything it wants." —Jennifer Egan, in her presentation of the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters

"Underworld is a page-turner and a masterwork, a sublime novel and a delight to read." —Joan Mellen, The Baltimore Sun

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    October 1, 1997

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780743549479
      • File size: 263174 KB
      • Duration: 09:08:16

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Few books are given the tender loving care that Dennis Boutsikaris gives Underworld. And this book needs it. Its ambition is to explore the American sensibility during the Cold War. DeLillo is a fine, absorbing writer and complex thinker who seeks a thread uniting everything in our culture from our most superficial symbols and pastimes to our most desperate needs. Few readers strive to give us a sense of a novel's architecture of plot, its manipulation of tension and rise to a climax, much less its architecture of ideas. But Boutsikaris has done his homework. His insight is apparent in every line, not only for its immediate meaning and personality, but for its relationship to the whole. Having done so, he then proceeds to use his strong, youthful voice and mastery of technique to deliver a seemingly effortless and deeply expressive rendering of some mighty fine writing. A benchmark performance that others should aspire to equal. Y.R. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
    • AudioFile Magazine
      Settle in for a long, fascinating journey through the post-war U.S., exquisitely described in 23 tapes, with countless accents and pinpoint literary accuracy by narrator Richard Poe. His reading sets the tone from the opening scene at the Polo Grounds, where Bobby Thompson inaugurates the modern marriage of sports and the media, to the barren landscape of America in the 1990s. Poe's performance is measured, studied, and technically flawless. His deep, authoritative voice covers the prose, and his characters have actual lives. This is a complex book that probably needs a second listening in order for us to fully grasp the nuances of DeLillo's writing. The book's length and detail can be daunting, but we are certainly rewarded at the end. R.I.G. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • AudioFile Magazine
      DeLillo's massive and astounding novel presents an enormous challenge, covering five decades of modern history through a shifting array of diverse characters. While traipsing across the landscape of American culture, alighting on such matters as Frank Sinatra, baseball, and even waste disposal policy, his real theme is nothing less than the entire Cold War. It is difficult, tricky material, and expect no help from Prichard's narration. He takes a minimalist approach, putting as little style and interpretation as possible between DeLillo and the listener. It is a justifiable approach, but any listener should be forewarned: Listening to DeLillo's latest novel demands the utmost in concentration and determination. Only then will its rewards reveal themselves. M.O. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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