White NoiseNATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • An “eerie, brilliant, and touching” (The New York Times) modern classic about mass culture and the numbing effects of technology. “Tremendously funny . . . A stunning performance from one of our most intelligent novelists.”—The New Republic The inspiration for the award-winning major motion picture starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig Jack Gladney teaches Hitler Studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America where his colleagues include New York expatriates who want to immerse themselves in “American magic and dread.” Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by their love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the usual rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. Then a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives, an “airborne toxic event” unleashed by an industrial accident. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the “white noise” engulfing the Gladney family—radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings—pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous. |
Contents
Section 20 | 107 |
Section 21 | 159 |
Section 22 | 165 |
Section 23 | 175 |
Section 24 | 181 |
Section 25 | 194 |
Section 26 | 209 |
Section 27 | 213 |
Section 9 | 35 |
Section 10 | 41 |
Section 11 | 47 |
Section 12 | 54 |
Section 13 | 59 |
Section 14 | 61 |
Section 15 | 75 |
Section 16 | 80 |
Section 17 | 85 |
Section 18 | 94 |
Section 19 | 98 |
Section 28 | 220 |
Section 29 | 226 |
Section 30 | 231 |
Section 31 | 245 |
Section 32 | 251 |
Section 33 | 259 |
Section 34 | 269 |
Section 35 | 282 |
Section 36 | 290 |
Section 37 | 306 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alfonse ambulettes Baba Babette Babette's began believe body brain called cloud colored crash crowd dark dead death déjà vu Denise doctor Don DeLillo door drove Dylar edge Elvis Presley eyes face fear feel felt forget führerbunker German girls Glassboro Grappa Gray hand happen head Heinrich Hitler Iron City Jack kids kind kitchen knew Lasher light listen little Patti live look mean motel mother moved movie Murray never night noise Nyodene Orest Patti Weaver person radio rain Richard Widmark seemed sense sitting sleep snow someone sound spoke station wagons Steffie street supermarket sure tablets talk tell There's things thought told took toxic event trying turned voice waiting walked watched What's White Noise Wilder window woman women wonder words worry Zumwalt