Mao II - Don Delillo [1]
“DeLillo has staked a claim in the mineral heart of postmodern lit. A Lone Ranger, he fires his perceptions like a beltload of silver bullets.
His novels are guaranteed I.Q. boosters.”
—Vanity Fair
“A consummate craftsman, DeLillo’s prose has a mesmerizing quality, and his elliptical way with dialogue is superb as always.”
—The San Diego Union
PENGUIN BOOKS
MAO II
Don DeLilio published his first short story when he was twenty-three years old. He has since written thirteen novels, including White Noise (1985), which won the National Book Award. It was followed by Libra (1988), his bestselling novel about the assassination of President Kennedy; Mao II (1991), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; and the bestselling Underworld (1997), which in 2000 won the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the most distinguished work of fiction published in the prior five years. Other novels include Americana, End Zone, and Great Jones Street, all available from Penguin. His most recent novel is Cosmopolis. In 1999, DeLillo was awarded the Jerusalem Prize, given to a writer whose work expresses the theme of freedom of the individual in society; he was the first American author to receive it.
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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, a division of
Penguin Books USA Inc. 1991
Published in Penguin Books 1992
Copyright © Don DeLillo, 1991
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Portions of this book first appeared in Esquire and Granta.
PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS:
Pages iv-v—Peter Turnley/Black Star; page 1—UPI/Bettmann; page 17—Syndication
International; page 105—© Jean Gaumy/Magnum Photos; page 225—
Reuters/Bettmann
eISBN : 978-1-440-67336-8
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TO GORDON LISH
Here they come, marching into American sunlight. They are grouped in twos, eternal boy-girl, stepping out of the runway beyond the fence in left-center field. The music draws them across the grass, dozens, hundreds, already too many to count. They assemble themselves so tightly, crossing the vast arc of the outfield, that the effect is one of transformation. From a series of linked couples they become one continuous wave, larger all the time, covering the open spaces in navy and white.
Karen’s daddy, watching from the grandstand, can’t help thinking this is the point. They’re one body now, an undifferentiated mass, and this makes