A review by stephen_coulon
Underworld by Don DeLillo

challenging funny informative reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

It’s a book about a diverse set of boomers suffering nihilistic crises when they hit middle age in the early 1990s. I’ve read several late 80s early 90s literary novels recently, all authored by gen-boomers,and in a way it’s led me to understand their mindset a bit more. They share a grave sense of childhood betrayal vis-a-vis the American Dream. It’s a defining characteristic, idealizing an impossibly perfect Americana in their early years that is suddenly shattered by the cultural upheaval of the late 1960s. Ironically, they revel in their participation in the 1960s chaos while simultaneously lamenting the loss of the American pastoral they were pointedly seeking to destroy as young adults. It’s a really schizophrenic worldview, and they’re really unhappy with its whiplashing implications (those boomers self-reflective enough to understand the paradox at least). For a gen-X reader like me, this is all a bit anticlimactic. Delillo alights on all the right topics here for the next wave of American disappointment (gun violence, terrorism, consumerism, neoconservatism), but his boomerish penchant for staying stuck in the 50s and 60s prevents him from foreseeing the magnitudinous changes coming in the next few years. His cynicism here seems quaint knowing that Columbine, 9-11, Iraq, and the great recession were just around the corner. So unlike his touching exploration of nihilism at the very personal, familial level in White Noise, this grand-narrative attempt at crafting a “great American novel” is overshadowed by the actual American history that followed shortly after.