Underworld: A Novel [Paperback]

A finalist for the National Book Award, Don DeLillo’s most powerful and riveting novel—“a great American novel, a masterpiece, a thrilling page-turner” (San Francisco Chronicle)—Underworldis about the second half of the twentieth century in America and about two people, an artist and an executive, whose lives intertwine in New York in the fifties and again in the nineties.

With cameo appearances by Lenny Bruce, J. Edgar Hoover, Bobby Thompson, Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason and Toots Shor, “this is DeLillo’s most affecting novel…a dazzling, phosphorescent work of art” (Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times).Reading Group Discussion Points

1. Underworld can refer to many different facets of this book, such as the labyrinthine subways that wind beneath New York City, or the underground art scenes frequented by Klara and her friends. But it also alludes to the underworld that lives within each of us, the fusing of our memories, emotions, and personal histories that make us who we are. Do you agree with the prison psychiatrist who tells young Nick Shay that we all have a history we are responsible to? Discuss other underworld themes in the book.
   
2. AsUnderworld'scover photo represents, there are many twin forces explored in this book. Identify these themes of duality and discuss how they're rendered by DeLillo.
   
3. Few books boast a more brilliantly conceived Prologue thanUnderworld.Discuss your opinions of it: its construction, its language, its use of real-life in a tale of fiction. Why is the Prologue titled The Triumph of Death? How does its gritty, you're-in-the-ballpark tone compare to the tone of the first chapter? Do you think the Prologue could stand alone as a short story?
   
4. One of the most striking aspects ofUnderworld'snarrative is its sprawling, nonlinear structure. By the end of the novel, we have gl³.