White Noise

NATIONAL 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 RepublicThe inspiration for the award-winning major motion picture starring Adam Driver and Greta GerwigJack 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.