White Noise (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) [Paperback]

Winner of the 1985 National Book Award—from the author ofZero K 

A Penguin Classic

Winner of the National Book Award,White Noisetells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultra­modern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an airborne toxic event, a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the white noise engulfing the Gladneys-radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings-pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. One of the most ironic, intelligent, grimly funny voices to comment on life in present-day America . . . [White Noise] poses inescapable questions with consummate skill.
--Jayne Anne Phillips,The New York Times Book Review

DeLillo's eighth novel should win him wide recognition as one of the best American noveslists. . . . the homey comedy ofWhite Noiseinvites us into a world we're glad to enter. Then the sinister buzz of implication makes the book unforgettably disturbing.
--Newsweek

A stunning book . . . it is a novel of hairline prophecy, showing a desolate and all-too-believable future in the evidence of an all-too-recognizable present. . . . Through tenderness, wit, and a powerful irony, DeLlt