White Noise is the eighth novel by Don DeLillo, published by Viking Press in 1985. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. White Noise is a cornerstone example of postmodern literature. It is widely considered DeLillo's breakout work and brought him to the attention of a much larger audience. The novel was included in Time's List of the 100 Best Novels. DeLillo originally wanted to call the book Panasonic, but the owner of the trademark Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (now Panasonic Holding Corporation), objected. In late 2022, the novel was adapted by director Noah Baumbach into a film of the same name starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig.
Plot Set in the bucolic college town Blacksmith, White Noise follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor at the College-on-the-Hill who has made his name by pioneering the field of Hitler studies (though he has not taken German lessons until this year). He has been married five times to four women and rears a number of children and stepchildren (Heinrich, Denise, Steffie, Wilder, and Eugene, who is away in Australia with his biological father) with his current wife, Babette. Jack and Babette are both extremely afraid of death; they frequently wonder which of them will be the first to die. The first part of White Noise, called "Waves and Radiation," is a chronicle of contemporary family life combined with academic satire. There is little plot development in this first section, which mainly serves as an introduction to the characters and themes which dominate the rest of the book. For instance, the mysterious deaths of men in "Mylex" (intended to suggest Mylar) suits and the ashen, shaken survivors of a plane that went into free fall anticipate the catastrophe of the book's second part. "Waves and Radiation" also introduces Murray Jay Siskind, Jack's friend and fellow college professor, who discusses theories about death, supermarkets, media, "psychic data", and other facets of contemporary American culture. Jack and Murray visit the most photographed barn in the world, discussing how its notoriety renders truly seeing the barn an impossibility, and later present an impromptu joint lecture juxtaposing the lives of Hitler and Elvis Presley. In the second part of the novel, "The Airborne Toxic Event," a chemical spill from a rail car releases a black noxious cloud over Jack's home region, prompting an evacuation. Frightened by his exposure to the toxin (called Nyodene Derivative), Jack is forced to confront his mortality. An organization called SIMUVAC (short for "simulated evacuation") is also introduced in part two, an indication of simulations replacing reality. In part three of the book, "Dylarama", Jack discovers that Babette has been cheating on him with a man she calls "Mr. Gray" in order to gain access to a fictional drug called Dylar, an experimental treatment for the terror of death. The novel becomes a meditation on modern society's fear of death and its obsession with chemical cures as Jack seeks to obtain his own black-market supply of Dylar. However, Dylar does not work for Babette, and it has many possible side effects, including losing the ability to "distinguish words from things, so that if someone said 'speeding bullet,' I would fall to the floor and take cover." Jack continues to obsess over death. During a discussion about mortality, Murray suggests that killing someone could alleviate the fear. Jack decides to track down and kill Mr. Gray, whose real name, he has learned, is Willie Mink. After a black comedy scene of Jack driving and rehearsing, in his head, several ways in which their encounter might proceed, he successfully locates and shoots Willie, who at the time is in a delirious state caused by his own Dylar addiction. Jack puts the gun in Willie's hand to make the murder look like a suicide, but Willie then shoots Jack in the arm. Suddenly realizing the needless loss of life, Jack carries Willie to a hospital run by German nuns who do not believe in God or an afterlife. Having saved Willie, Jack returns home to watch his children sleep. The final chapter describes Wilder, Jack's youngest child, riding a tricycle across the highway and miraculously surviving. Jack, Babette, and Wilder join a crowd gathering to watch the brilliant sunset, possibly enhanced by the airborne toxic event, from an overpass, before Jack describes his avoidance of his doctor and the hypnotic and spiritual nature of the supermarket.
Structure White Noise is written in the first person through the eyes of the main character, Jack Gladney. Jack is middle-aged and overly concerns himself with the inevitability of death. The first-person perspective gives the audience the ability to see Jack's true thoughts and feelings. The majority of the novel is written in dialogue, primarily focusing on the interactions between the characters and Jack's interpretations. Author DeLillo purposefully creates Jack's dialogue to be philosophical. The diction is not complex, but rather the sentence structure of Jack's dialogue is complex. Jack's character's dialogue throughout the story provides a better meaning than the other characters'.
Setting White Noise begins in the college town of Blacksmith. The exact geographical setting of White Noise is unidentified, but elements of the novel evoke the Midwestern United States, especially the Rust Belt and Upper Midwest. The fictional Iron City shares its name with the Pittsburgh beer company of the same name. Critic John Pistelli wrote that a Midwestern setting was "thematically appropriate to the novel's concern with the vanishing of labor and laboring know-how."
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