Introducing Don DeLillo

If you want to find out what a rock critic, a syndicated columnist, and scholars of American literature have to say about one of America’s most important contemporary novelists, turn to Introducing Don DeLillo. Placing the author’s work in a cultural context, this is the first book-length collection on DeLillo, adding considerably to the emerging critical discourse on his work.
Diversity is the key to this striking assemblage of cultural criticism edited by Frank Lentricchia. Special features include an expanded version of the Rolling Stone interview with the author (“An Outsider in this Society”) and the extraordinary tenth chapter of DeLillo’s Ratner’s Star. Accessibly written and entertaining, the collection will be of great interest to both students and scholars of contemporary American literature as well as to general readers interested in DeLillo’s work.Contributors. Frank Lentricchia, Anthony Decurtis, Daniel Aaron, Hal Crowther, John A. McClure, Eugene Goodheart, Charles Molesworth, Dennis A. Foster, and John Frow

The American Writer as Bad Citizen / Frank Lentricchia 1

"Opposites," Chapter 10 of Ratner's Star / Don DeLillo 7

"An Outsider in This Society": An Interview with Don DeLillo / Anthony DeCurtis 43

How to Read Don DeLillo / Daniel Aaron 67

Clinging to the Rock: A Novelist's Choices in the New Mediocracy / Hal Crowther 83

Postmodern Romance: Don DeLillo and the Age of Conspiracy / Joahn A. McClure 99

Some Speculations on Don DeLillo and the Cinematic Real / Eugene Goodheart 117

The Product: Bucky Wunderlick, Rock 'n Roll, and Don DeLillo's Great Jones Street / Anthony DeCurtis 131

Don DeLillo's Perfect Starry Night / Charles Molesworth 143

Alphabetic Pleasures: The Names / Dennis A. Foster 157

The Last Things Before the Last: Notes on White Noise / John Frow 175

Libra as Postmodern Critique / Frank Lentricchia 193

List of Don DeLillo's Novels 216

Notes on Contributors 217

Index 219