Ottumwa Public Library

Library Journal Review

Life assassinates art in the latest literary missive from DeLillo (White Noise). Precocious filmmaker Jim Finley visits Richard Elster, a scholar and government consultant, to pitch an idea for a documentary about Elster. What begins as a project spiel, however, gradually becomes a series of intellectual exchanges that only intensify when Elster's daughter arrives for a visit. The three settle into a comfortable routine, only to be catapulted out of it by a completely unexpected plot twist that will leave even careful readers scratching their heads. DeLillo's prose is simultaneously spare and lyrical, creating a minimalist dreamworld that will please readers attuned to language and sound. Structural purists, meanwhile, will appreciate the novel's film-related framing device, which wraps around the main action like a blanket and unifies the whole with a painful, poignant grace. VERDICT Though it be but brief, DeLillo's latest offering is fierce. An excellent nugget of thought-provoking fiction that pits life against art and emotion against intellect. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/09.]-Leigh Anne Vrabel, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.