Appreciating Don DeLillo

The Moral Force of a Writer's Work

Paul Giaimo

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780313386244
• eBook ISBN: 9780313386251
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Drama
• Index: Literature

An insightful work providing state-of-the-art critical guidance and informative commentary on the major novels of Don DeLillo in terms of how they respond to current social and ethical issues. Unlike the majority of American academic critics, author Paul Giaimo contends that Don DeLillo's award-winning novels are fully defined by neither postmodernism nor modernism. To demonstrate this thesis, Appreciating Don DeLillo: The Moral Force of a Writer's Work traces DeLillo's style through his novels, showing how it evolved from a recognizably postmodern mode into a realistic treatment of contemporary, postmodern conditions. In this original and nuanced examination, Giaimo discusses themes that range from the devastating portrayals of evil in Mao II, Libra and Cosmopolis, to the good and inspiring confrontation of media stereotypes and urban missionary work in Underworld. The powerful vision of language in The Names and White Noise is examined as a potent moral force of the novels. Equally important is discussion of the cultural background Giaimo believes should inform any reading of DeLillo's work, especially his Italian-American ethnic heritage and the American Catholic church of the 1950s.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Don DeLillo and the Novel—Neither Modern nor Postmodern
• Chapter 2: Intimations of a Moral Vision in DeLillo’s Early Novels
• Chapter 3: The Names and White Noise: A New Faith in the Power of Language
• Chapter 4: Unspeakable Evil in Libra, Mao II, and Cosmopolis
• Chapter 5: Confronting Unspeakable Evil: DeLillo’s “Filming” Italian Americans
• Chapter 6: The Inner Divisions of People and Systems in Underworld’s Roman Catholic Church
• Chapter 7: Artists, Writers, and Moral Accountability
• Bibliography
• Index