Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
This tale of a reclusive novelist drawn back into the world by acts of terrorism reconfirms DeLillo's status as a modern master and literary provocateur. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Each of DeLillo's previous nine novels ( White Noise ; Libra ; etc.) has been a tour de force. This newest work is another remarkable achievement. It is almost as if DeLillo's words have value apart from the story they recount; sentences chill, scenes amaze, chapter endings reverberate, and the reader is transfixed. A reclusive novelist, Bill Gray, is drawn back into the world by acts of terrorism and by the visit of a woman who has come to photograph him for her ongoing and endless project to capture the images of the world's authors. Gradually, the novel, dense but accessible, concerns itself with the inevitable conflict between the power of the crowd and the power of the individual. Which is the motor of the world: The novelist, who may write alone in his room and yet affect masses? The terrorist, who is an individual working in concert with a larger movement which he may or may not control? The ``master'' who controls masses? (The lover of Gray's assistant has been a Moonie: the opening scene, a mass wedding, is a brilliant set piece). The beauty of DeLillo's prose enlivens such seemingly dry questions. Mao II reconfirms DeLillo's status as a modern master and literary provocateur. 75,000 first printing; BOMC selection; first serial to Esquire and Granta. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
In this, his tenth novel, Don DeLillo returns to territory familiar to readers of his earlier novels, especially Players (1977), White Noise (1985), and Libra (CH, Dec'88). The plot revolves around Bill Gray, author of two novels, a near-total recluse who has been working on another novel for 20 years. At the advice of a photographer and editor, he agrees to make a public appearance in support of a Swiss poet abducted by Beirut terrorists. Soon Gray is wending his way to the Middle East on a selfless yet also self-serving mission. As in all his novels, DeLillo uses his characters to give free play to a host of ideas, not the least of which here is the complex nexus between writing and terrorism and the usurpation of a culture's vitality by those most bent on its destruction. Once again, DeLillo's prose is pointedly direct and precise as he plumbs the recesses of paranoia and personal and social uncertainty in an era desperately yearning for stability. DeLillo continues to be one of contemporary American fiction's most compelling voices.-D. W. Madden, California State University, Sacramento
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
With a formidable body of work behind him, DeLillo has earned the reflexive musings of this heady portrait of an obsessed and reclusive writer--a novelist haunted by the corruptions of an image-dominated world, and hunted by those who deny him the eloquence of silence. Two early books have brought Bill Gray both Salinger-like acclaim and enough royalties to live as obscurely as Pynchon, which he does in upstate New York, with a younger assistant named Scott, an alter-ego who attends to all his worldly needs, and maintains the massive Gray archive, including the much rewritten work-in-progress. Unsure whether to publish again, Gray derides to give the world an image instead and poses for a Swedish photographer named Brita, whom Scott escorts to Gray's hideaway with all the caution of visiting an elusive terrorist. And that's the point. Gray has retreated into silence as a way of creating ""force"" and ""myth,"" but only the terrorist has the real power these days, the ability to shape and influence events, ""to make raids on the human consciousness."" When the news satisfies our need for narrative, the terrorist becomes the most important player, and the artist has one other choice besides retreat: He can, like Warhol, feed our addiction to imagery. Or so Gray contends. But events conspire to draw him into the real world of terror when a planned public reading in London--in support of a hostage in Lebanon--unravels into a murkier plot, propelled by Gray himself. With a deadly liver ailment, he sets off for Beirut, the ""millennial image mill."" But instead of affecting history in some small way, he manages to disappear in an image of total anonymity. Back home, Scott maintains the status quo with the help of his spacey girlfriend Karen, a former Moonie who understands that messianism is the key to survival, that the crowd is the engendering trope of our time. DeLillo's edgy characters speak ""the uninventable poetry, inside the pain, of what people say""; his talking heads murmur the mysteries of our age. For all its ""cool gloom,"" his latest novel stands in denial of Gray's doom-drenched semiotics: it's a luminous book, full of anger deflected into irony, with moments of hard-earned transcendence. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
This extraordinary story focuses on one Bill Gray, a reclusive writer whose legend abounds while he slowly deteriorates from drinking, drugs, and depression. His assistant Scott keeps his image alive yet mysterious. ``Years ago there were stories that Bill was dead, Bill was in Manitoba, Bill was living under another name, Bill would never write another word. . . . . Now Bill was devising his own cycle of death and resurgence. It made Scott think of great leaders who regenerate their power by dropping out of sight and then staging messianic returns. Mao Zedong of course.'' Enter Brita Nilsson, photographer of writers and terrorists, who captures Bill's likeness on film for the first time in more than three decades and pushes him to publish his last great novel. Publisher Charlie gives Bill a PR offer he can't refuse, and the story concludes on the violent streets of Beirut. DeLillo's style is wonderfully expressive yet dark in tone. Readers will thoroughly enjoy it. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/91.-- Kevin M. Roddy, Oakland P.L., Cal. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.