End Zone
Don DeLillo
240 pages
Synopsis
During a season of unprecedented success, Gary becomes increasingly fixated on the threat of nuclear war. Both frightened and fascinated by the prospect, he listens to his team-mates discussing match tactics in much the same terms as generals might contemplate global conflict. But as the terminologies of football and nuclear war – the language of end zones – become interchanged, the polysemous nature of words emerges, and DeLillo forces us to see beyond the sterile reality of substitution.
This clever and playful novel is a timeless and topical study of human beings' obsession with conflict and confrontation.
Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.
America's greatest living writer.Observer
Nobody, it seems, could write better than this. No one could have a clearer vision of the micro-circuitry of post-modern life.Evening Standard
Powerfully funny, oblique, testy, and playful, tearing along in dazzling cinematic spurts . . . A masterful novel.Washington Post