Don DeLillo on Underworld: 'there was no escape' | Books | The Guardian

Immediately after the remarkable 60-page prologue, DeLillo leaps 41 years into the future to an abandoned airfield in the desert. Here his central character, Nick Shay, is watching an old flame, the visionary artist Klara Sax, being interviewed for French television. When the interviewer warns that she might sound stupid because of her poor English, Sax responds ironically: "But I must be smart, funny, profound and charming." I had this - and DeLillo's notorious dislike of dissecting his work in public - in mind ahead of the author's public discussion with Professor John Mullan. The novel that followed is one of enormous scope, a mosaic of American life pulsating with insight and ambition. Despite its epic size, every sentence is a pleasure. DeLillo paints a fevered picture of the country, weaving the experiences of roughly 100 characters between events such as the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam and the Cuban missile crisis. His unmistakable dialogue lends characters a heightened ability to interpret and relay aspects of the world around them.