''Americana'' (1971) is American novelist
Don DeLillo
Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, per ...
's first book.
DeLillo conceived the novel while traveling through Maine with friends.
In 1989, DeLillo revised the text, excising several pages from the original.
Content
The book is narrated by David Bell, a former television executive turned
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
filmmaker
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...
. Beginning with an exploration of the malaise of the modern corporate man, the novel turns into an interrogation of film's power to misrepresent reality as Bell creates an autobiographical road-movie.
The story addresses roots of American pathology and introduces themes DeLillo expanded upon in ''
The Names'' (1982), ''
White Noise
In signal processing, white noise is a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. The term is used, with this or similar meanings, in many scientific and technical disciplines, ...
'' (1985), and ''
Libra
Libra generally refers to:
* Libra (constellation), a constellation
* Libra (astrology), an astrological sign based on the star constellation
Libra may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Libra'' (novel), a 1988 novel by Don DeLillo
Musi ...
'' (1988). The first half of the novel can be viewed as a critique of the corporate world while the second half articulates the fears and dilemmas of contemporary American life.
References
1971 American novels
Novels by Don DeLillo
Houghton Mifflin books
1971 debut novels
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