Underworld (DeLillo novel)
Cover to the first edition
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| Author | Don DeLillo |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Postmodern Novel |
| Publisher | Scribner |
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Publication date
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3 October 1997 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 827 (hardback first edition) |
| ISBN | (hardback first edition) |
| OCLC | 36783742 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3554.E4425 U53 1997 |
Underworld is a novel published in 1997 by Don DeLillo. It was nominated for the National Book Award, was a best-seller, and is one of DeLillo's better-known novels.
Underworld continues to receive general acclaim from literary critics. In 2006, a survey of eminent authors and critics conducted by The New York Times found Underworld the runner-up for the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years; it garnered 11 of 125 votes, finishing behind only Toni Morrison's Beloved with 15 votes.
Underworld is a non-linear narrative that has many intertwined themes. A central character is Nick Shay, a waste management executive, who leads an undirected existence in late 20th-century America. His wife, Marian, is having an affair with one of his friends.
The events of the novel span from the 1950s through the 1990s. The characters in the book respond to several historical events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and nuclear proliferation.
The novel is divided into eight sections:
DeLillo said that the novel's title came to him as he thought about radioactive waste buried deep underground and about Pluto, god of death. The waste and byproducts of history, dissected and discussed throughout the novel, constantly resurface from the underworld (or, subconscious) of the American population despite their best attempts to repress and bury things they would rather forget. Further connections and connotations about the title can be made between part of the novel's subject matter (mafia criminals in New York who Nick Shay fantasizes may have had his father killed), and the 1927 gangster film of the same name.
The novel opens on October 3, 1951, when a boy named Cotter Martin sneaks in to watch the New York Giants play the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Giants' home field Polo Grounds. (The prologue, Pafko at the Wall, was written on its own before the novel.) In the ninth inning, Ralph Branca pitches to Bobby Thomson, who hits the ball into the stands for a three-run homer, beating the Dodgers 5-4 and capturing the National League pennant. Known to baseball fans as "The Shot Heard 'Round the World", the fate of that ball is unknown, but in DeLillo's novel, Cotter Martin wrests this valuable ball away from another fan who has just befriended him, and runs home. Cotter's father, Manx, steals the ball and later sells it for $32.45.
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