''Amazons'' is a novel co-written by

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 ...

, published under the pseudonym Cleo Birdwell in 1980. The subtitle is ''An Intimate Memoir by the First Woman to Play in the National Hockey League''. The book was a collaboration with a former co-worker of DeLillo's, Sue Buck, and represents a commercial, light-hearted effort between his novels ''

Running Dog Running dog is a pejorative term for an unprincipled person who helps or flatters those more powerful and often evil. It is a literal translation of the Chinese pejorative (), meaning a yes-man or lackey, and is derived from the tendency of dogs ...

'' and '' The Names''. While the book is widely known to have been written by DeLillo, and is technically his seventh novel, it has never been reprinted and he has only once officially acknowledged writing it. Additionally, when

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

was compiling an official bibliography for the Viking Critical Library edition of ''White Noise'', DeLillo asked the publishers that the book be expunged from the list.

Plot summary

The novel is a fictitious autobiography narrated by Birdwell centering on her experiences as the first woman to play professional hockey in the

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

. It is in some ways similar to DeLillo's second novel, the football-themed ''End Zone'', though more humorous and smaller in scale, replete with social satire and comedy. The story follows Birdwell and her teammates on the

New York Rangers The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home ...

, as they travel around North American cities playing games and engaging in sexual adventures. The prose is distinctly and obviously DeLillo's, but as further proof of his authorship, readers cite the appearance of the character Murray Jay Siskind, a sportswriter in the novel, who later appears as the eccentric former sportswriter-turned-"visiting lecturer on American icons" in DeLillo's novel ''White Noise''.

Aftermath

In 2014, ''

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'' stated that DeLillo "doesn't want his name attached to 'Amazons'', "has never officially acknowledged writing it", and "won’t grant permission" for it to be reprinted.Don DeLillo's forgotten "memoir"
by Victoria Patterson, in ''

'', published January 11, 2014; retrieved April 5, 2020 In a 2020 interview with the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

, DeLillo finally acknowledged writing the novel.

References

{{Don DeLillo 1980 American novels Novels by Don DeLillo Novels about ice hockey Works published under a pseudonym Women's ice hockey Holt, Rinehart and Winston books