This page lists the known reviews of Cleo Birdwell/Don DeLillo's 1980 novel (written with help from Sue Buck), Amazons.
In 2026, Amazons again catches some attention because of a recent TV show called “Heated Rivalry” featuring a hockey romance:
The New York Times (Jan. 27, 2026) ran "Did Don DeLillo Invent Hockey Erotica?" by Alexandra Alter, with background quotes from Jonathan Lethem and Gerald Howard. Note: Alter did an interview with DeLillo a while back.
For decades, DeLillo, who through his publisher declined to comment for this article, remained silent on the subject of Amazons. Five years ago, he tacitly acknowledged authorship during an interview with The New York Times Magazine. "Oh god. How do you remember that?" he said when asked about Amazons.Others, however, believe the novel deserves to be ranked among his funniest books, as well as his most erotic, a mode that DeLillo isn’t known for. The sex scenes in Amazons are frequent, explicit, elaborate and often very funny.
In bed with a former Rangers player, Birdwell describes how he [sic] "took the gum out of his mouth and stuck it on the wall near his head. For later, I guess."
In recent years (2008-2014) here have been a number of articles "re-discovering" Amazons:
Amazons came into the world more in the style of a put-on than a hoax. DeLillo wrote the book in collaboration with Sue Buck, a friend and colleague from his Ogilvy & Mather days and a dedicatee of White Noise. She apparently provided such hockey expertise as was needed and the raw material concerning Cleo's idyllic Ohio childhood. DeLillo's editor at Knopf, his publisher at the time, was insufficiently amused, and so the two were allowed to sell the book elsewhere on the condition that DeLillo's authorship be hidden. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston picked Amazons up and proceeded to publish it with deadpan skill, slyly eliding the question of its factual nature.
But Birdwell is not a professional author; her narrative follows no game plan. She experiences it as we do, moment by moment, and is sometimes equally surprised at the turns of events. Naturally, since she is a woman and full of small-town sociability, she writes mostly not about hockey action, in which every player is alone, or even about her happy youth. She tells about the people she lives among. And in the world of professional sport they ale almost all men.
But even if it doesn't sound funny, it is. Cleo Birdwell has a way with the incongruous, which doesn't come as a surprise once you've learned that her name is the nom de plume for Don DeLillo, the novelist. She has this talent for grabbing clichés by the throat and strangling them until they cough up meaning. She turns meaning inside out and exposes its nonsense.