Mao II: A Novel

· Sold by Penguin
4.4
10 reviews
Ebook
256
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award

From the author of White Noise (winner of the National Book Award) and The Silence, a profound novel about art, terror, masses, and the individual from "one of the most intelligent, grimly funny voices to comment on life in present-day America" (The New York Times)


Bill Gray, a famous, reclusive novelist, emerges from his isolation when he becomes the key figure in an event staged to force the release of a poet hostage in Beirut. As Bill enters the world of political violence, a nightscape of Semtex explosives and hostages locked in basement rooms, Bill's dangerous passage leaves two people stranded: his brilliant, fixated assistant, Scott, and the strange young woman who is Scott's lover—and Bill's.

An extraordinary novel from Don DeLillo about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist, Mao II explores a world in which the novelist's power to influence the inner life of a culture now belongs to bomb-makers and gunmen. Mao II is the work of an ingenious writer at the height of his powers.

Ratings and reviews

4.4
10 reviews
Simon l
November 28, 2015
At times depressing and on first reading a bit disjointed. However, the style and quality the writing more than makes up for any slight problems with the overall concept.
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About the author

Acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist Don DeLillo published his first short story when he was twenty-three years old. He has since written twelve novels, including White Noise (1985), which won the National Book Award. It was followed by Libra (1988), his novel about the assassination of President Kennedy, and by Mao II, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In 1997, he published the bestselling Underworld, and in 1999 he was awarded the Jerusalem Prize, given to a writer whose work expresses the theme of the freedom of the individual in society; he was the first American author to receive it. DeLillo is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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