This is one of the most famous and heralded examples of the postmodern novel, having won the National Book Award in 1985. Normally, postmodern novels are minefields of nonsense, but this one actually works.
There's enough of a plot to keep things from getting too amorphous, as Jack Gladney, a Hitler studies scholar at a small midwestern college, and his family have to evacuate their home because of an "airborne toxic event" unleashed by a train wreck. Also, Jack's wife is secretly taking an experimental drug that attempts to treat the fear of death, which causes Jack and one of his daughter's some consternation.
Both of these plot points tie into the title, which refers to Jack's own fear of death. There's lots of pop-, media- and consumer-culture references, which Jack uses as a way to stay connected to reality. They also inject humor and insight into the tale, and serve as a nice landmark of what life was like in the early 1980s.
DeLillo manages to be thoroughly postmodern without being obscure or insufferable, and for that this book gets a four-star (out of five) rating.
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