The Modern Novel

Biography

Don DeLillo was very much a cult novelist till the publication of Libra in 1988, though it was not till the publication of Underworld in 1997 that he really became popular. In all his novels, his heroes are all searching for something, something that will give their life meaning but, in all cases, they are trapped in contemporary America where there is less and less a role for the individual, unless it be as a consumer or victim, and cannot get out from under what the USA has become. Advertising, boredom, violence, banality – these are the hallmarks of DeLillo’s America.

DeLillo was born in 1936 in the Bronx. He grew up on the streets of the Bronx, in the Italian community there. He went to college at Fordham University, where he majored in communications. He started work as an advertising copywriter but hated it and left to become a full-time writer. In 1965 he married Barbara Bennett, who was a banker but became a landscape designer. DeLillo claims as his main influences European movies (particularly Godard and Fellini), jazz and Abstract Expressionism. He is now recognised as one of the leading post-modernist novelists.

Books about Don DeLillo

Douglas Keesey: Don DeLillo
Frank Lentricchia: Introducing Don DeLillo

Other links

Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Life & Times: Don DeLillo
Featured Author: Don DeLillo
DeLillo Events of Interest
The chronicler of America (profile)
How we work: Don DeLillo, author
Dangerous Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo’s America – A Don DeLillo Page
The Don DeLillo Society
White Noise on White Noise
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interviews
Interviews