Reviews of DeLillo's Work
DeLillo's wit is so surgical you don't even know an artery
has been severed. You don't laugh until you see you're bleeding.
--Nelson Algren, 1972
The basis of this listing came from Galenet's Contemporary
Authors text, which went up to 1985. I have added quite a
few more, up through The Body Artist.
PERIODICALS
America:
- August 7, 1976 - review of Ratner's Star by Gerald
M. Knoll
- July 6-13, 1985 - review of White Noise by Robert
Phillips
Antioch Review:
- Spring 1972 (V32/#1&2) - very short review of End
Zone
- Winter 1983 (V41/#1) - very short review of The Names
- Fall 1985 (V43/#4) - very short review of White Noise
- Winter 1989 (V47/#1) - very short review of Libra
Atlantic:
- August, 1976 - review of Ratner's Star by Amanda Heller
- September, 1977
- February, 1985 - brief review of White Noise
- October, 1997 - revew of Underworld entitled "An
Underhistory of Mid-Century America" by Tom LeClair
(p.113)
Boston Globe:
- September 20, 1977 - "The Sad Slide of DeLillo"
review of Players by Margaret Manning
- September 10, 1978 - review of Running Dog by Margaret
Manning
- October 18, 1982 - "He's a Victim of his Rituals"
review of The Names by Margaret Manning
- January 27, 1985 - "Don DeLillo's Upside-Down World"
review of White Noise by Mark Feeney
- January 15, 1988 - review of "The Day Room" by
Mark Feeney
- July 24, 1988 - "A Window on that Day in Dallas"
review of Libra by Mark Feeney
- September 28, 1997 - "Blasts from the Past" review
of Underworld by Gail Caldwell
- February 4, 2001 - review of The Body Artist by Gail
Caldwell
Chicago Tribune Book World:
- November 7, 1982 - review of The Names by Robert Onopa
- January 13, 1985 - review of White Noise by John W.
Aldridge
- July 31, 1988 - review of Libra by Paul Skenazy
- June 23, 1991 - review of Mao II by Jerome Klinkowitz
- September 21, 1997 - review of Underworld entitled
"Below the Surface" by Melvin Jules Bukiet
Cleveland Plain Dealer:
- September 21, 1997 - review
of Underworld by Gary Lee Stonum
Commonweal:
- April 5, 1985 - p. 219
- November 4, 1988 - review of Libra by Peter LaSalle
- August 9, 1991 - review of Mao II by Mark Feeney
- November 7, 1997 - "DeLillo's surrogate believers"
review of Underworld by Paul Elie, pp. 19-21
Crawdaddy:
- October, 1978 - "De Wild, De Wicked, De Fuhrer and DeLillo"
review of Running Dog by Debra Rae Cohen (contains a few
DeLillo quotes)
Daily Telegraph:
- January 3, 1998 - "The country where history is more
inventive than fiction" review of Underworld by Christophey
Bigsby
- February 11, 2001 - "Mind the gaps" review of The
Body Artist by John Lanchester
Detroit Free Press:
- September 28, 1997 - "A great American novel" review
of Underworld by Terry Lawson
Detroit News:
The Economist:
- November 8, 1998 - "A less-than-great American Novel"
review of Underworld
Elle:
- December, 1988 - "Moody Americans" review of Libra
by David Rieff, pp. 120-22
- October, 1997 - review of Underworld by Paul Elie,
p. 120
Entertainment Weekly:
- October 3, 1997 - review of Underworld by Tom DeHaven
Frankfurter Rundschau:
- October 6, 1997 - "Der Muell, die Bombe und der Homerun"
review of Underworld by Peter Koerte, pg. 7
Globe and Mail (Toronto):
- March 9, 1985 - review of White Noise by Bart Testa
- June 22, 1991 - "The curator of menace" review
of Mao II by Don Gillmor
- January 27, 2001 - "Don
DeLillo does miniature" review of The Body Artist
by Charles Foran
GQ:
- September, 1997 - review of Underworld by Thomas Mallon,
p. 193-4
Guardian (Manchester):
- November 11, 1988 - "Beware of the underdog" review
of Libra by Stephen Fender, p. 31
- August 29, 1991 - "The face in the crowd" review
of Mao II by James Wood, p. 22
- January 8, 1998 - "Books
of discrimination" review of Underworld by Richard
Williams
- February 17, 2001 - "Reality,
unplugged" review of The Body Artist by Giles
Foden
Harper's:
- September, 1977 - "End Game" review of Players
by Stephen Koch, pp. 88-89
- December, 1982 - review of The Names by Frances Taliaferro
- November, 1997 - "The Unsparing Vison of Don DeLillo"
review of Underworld by Vince Passaro, pp. 72-75
Harper's Bazaar:
- October, 1997 - "Defining Moments" review of Underworld
by J. Hoberman, p. 152
The Independent (U.K.):
- September 8, 1991 - "Thoroughly Post-Modern Millenium"
review of Mao II by Martin Amis, Sunday Review p. 28.
- January 4, 1998 - review
of Underworld by Blake Morrison
The Irish Times:
- January 8, 1998 - "Pitched into the future" review
of Underworld by Eileen Battersby
Kirkus Reviews:
- July, 1997 - short notice of Underworld
London Evening Standard:
- January 12, 1998 - review of Underworld
by Allison Pearson
London Review of Books:
- February 5, 1998 - Vol 20 No 3, a review of Underworld
by Michael Wood entitled "Post-Paranoid",
p. 3.
Los Angeles Times Book Review:
- March 26, 1972 - "A Waugh in Shoulder Padding"
review of End Zone by Nelson Algren
- June 24, 1973 - "Musical Chairs in a Rock 'n' Roll Throne
Room" review of Great Jones Street by Nelson Algren
- July 11, 1976 - "Ratner's star just fails to twinkle"
review of Ratner's Star by Nelson Algren
- September 11, 1977 - "An American dream unhinged"
review of Players by Ardie Ivie
- November 7, 1982 - "The American as citizen of nowhere"
review of The Names by Charles Champlin
- January 13, 1985 - review of White Noise by Richard
Eder
- July 31, 1988 - "Imagining the Kennedy Assassination"
review of Libra by Richard Eder
- June 9, 1991 - "Hermetically Seared" review of
Mao II by Richard Eder
- September 28, 1997 - "Dead Souls" review of Underworld
by Richard Eder
Maclean's:
- August 29, 1988 - "The mind of an assassin" review
of Libra by Lenny Glynn, pp. 50-51
Mirabella:
- September/October, 1997 - review of Underworld by
Will Blythe, p. 50, 52. "Only the greatest novelists can
go down deathward into landfills and bomb shelters, test sites
and ghetto basements, down into the underworld, and come back
up singing" (52)
Mother Jones:
- September, 1988 - "Oswald as Anti-Hero" review
of Libra by Robert Dunn
Nation:
- September 17, 1977
- October 18, 1980 - "A Pro's Puckish Prose" review
of Amazons by J.D. O'Hara, pp. 385-386
- December 11, 1982 - "Analyzing the Risks" review
of The Names by J.D. O'Hara, pp. 630-632
- February 2, 1985 - "Maximum Exposure" review of
White Noise by Thomas M. Disch, pp. 120-121
- September 19, 1988 - "Scripts, Plots and Codes"
review of Libra by John Leonard, pp. 205-208
- November 3, 1997 - "American
Jitters" review of Underworld by John Leonard
National Review:
- October 28, 1977
- November 24, 1997 - "The Los Angeles of Novels"
review of Underworld by James Gardner. Refers to the novel
as Underground throughout!
New Leader
- September 22, 1997 - "Stalking the elusive zeitgeist"
review of Underworld by Ben Downing, pp. 17-18. Not a
favorable review; "If this novel had been written by a hack,
I would be tempted maliciously to dub it 'Undercooked' or 'Blunderworld'
and to draw snide analogies with Waterworld."
New Republic:
- October 7, 1978 - review of Running Dog by Thomas
LeClair
- November 22, 1982 - "A Dark Art" review of The
Names by Robert Towers
- February 4, 1985 - "Midwestern Wasteland" review
of White Noise by Jay McInerney
- November 10, 1997 - "Black
Noise" review of Underworld by James Woods
New Statesman Society:
- November 11, 1988 - "DeLillo delivers" review of
Libra by Geoff Dyer
- January 2, 1998 - "The uses of junk" review of
Underworld by Michael Mewshaw, p. 52
Newsweek:
- June 7, 1976 - "Mandarin's Apprentice" review of
Ratner's Star by Peter S. Prescott
- August 29, 1977 - "City Lights" review of Players
by Margo Jefferson
- October 25, 1982 - review of The Names by Gene Lyons
- January 21, 1985 - "At the Edge of Dreams" review
of White Noise by Walter Clemons, p. 69
- August 15, 1988 - "Appointment in Dallas" review
of Libra, p. 59
- June 3, 1991 - short review of Mao II by Malcolm Jones
Jr, p. 61
- September 22, 1997 - "DeLillo Hits a Home Run"
review of Underworld by Malcolm Jones Jr., p. 84-85
- January 15, 2001 - "Dark Tale" review of The
Body Artist by Malcolm Jones
New York:
- January 4, 1988 - review of a production of "The Day
Room" by John Simon, p. 45
- Sept. 8, 1997 - short review of Underworld, p. 137
New York Observer:
New Yorker:
- May 6, 1972 - briefly noted, unsigned review of End Zone
- July 12, 1976 - briefly noted, unsigned review of Ratner's
Star
- March 27, 1978 - "Layers of Ambiguity" review of
Players by John Updike
- September 18, 1978 - briefly noted, unsigned review of Running
Dog
- April 4, 1983 - briefly noted review of The Names
- January 11, 1988 - "Who's the Boss" review of "The
Day Room" by Mimi Kramer, pp. 74-75
- September 26, 1988 - "Self-Watcher" review of Libra
by Terrence Rafferty
- June 24, 1991 - "Market Report" review of Mao
II by Louis Menand, pp. 81-84
New York Review of Books:
- June 29, 1972 - review of End Zone by Roger Sale
- December 16, 1982 - review of The Names by Josh Rubins
- March 14, 1985 - "Conspirators" review of White
Noise by Diane Johnson, pp. 6-7
- August 18, 1988 - "From the Grassy Knoll" review
of Libra by Robert Towers
- June 27, 1991 - review of Mao II by Robert Towers,
p. 18.
- November 6, 1997 - "Between
Hell and History" review of Underworld by Luc
Sante, p. 4-7
- February 22, 2001 - "The
Hunger Artist" review of The Body Artist by John Leonard
New York Times:
- May 6, 1971 - "Old Story, Fresh Language" review
of Americana by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
- March 22, 1972 - "A Touchdown for Don DeLillo"
review of End Zone by C. Lehmann-Haupt
- April 16, 1973 - "DeLillo Runs Out of Bounds" review
of Great Jones Street by C. Lehmann-Haupt
- May 27, 1976 - "Kafka and Einstein Meet" review
of Ratner's Star by C. Lehmann-Haupt
- August 11, 1977 - review of Players by John Leonard
- September 16, 1980 - review of Amazons by C. Lehmann-Haupt
- October 12, 1982 - review of The Names by C. Lehmann-Haupt
- January 7, 1985 - review of White Noise by C. Lehmann-Haupt
- July 18, 1988 - "A Pilgrim's Regress in Dallas, November
'63" review of Libra by C. Lehmann-Haupt
- May 28, 1991 - "Fighting Against Envelopment by the
Mass Mind" review of Mao II by Michiko Kakutani
- September 16, 1997 - "Of America as a Splendid Junk
Heap" review of Underworld by Michiko Kakutani, p.
B1, B7. With a big color photo of DeLillo in front of a shop
in the Bronx. There's a little reproduction of the photo on page
one.
- January 19, 2001 - review
of The Body Artist by Michiko Kakutani
New York Times Book Review:
- May 30, 1971 - short notice on Americana in "Reader's
Report" by Martin Levin
- April 9, 1972 - page one review of End Zone by Thomas
R. Edwards
- April 22, 1973 - page two review of Great Jones Street
by Sara Blackburn
- June 20, 1976 - page seven review of Ratner's Star
by George Stade
- September 4, 1977 - "Beyond Radical Chic" page
one review of Players by Diane Johnson
- November 12, 1978 - page fourteen review of Running Dog
- October 10, 1982 - "Americans on the Prowl" first
page review of The Names by Michael Wood
- January 13, 1985 - "Crowding Out Death" first page
review of White Noise by Jayne Anne Phillips
- July 24, 1988 - "Dallas, Echoing Down the Decades"
first page review of Libra by Anne Tyler
- June 9, 1991 - "Look for a Writer and Find a Terrorist"
review of Mao II by Lorrie Moore
- October 5, 1997 - "Survivors
of the Cold War" review of Underworld by Martin
Amis, p. 1
- February 4, 2001 - "Ghostbuster"
review of The Body Artist by Adam Begley
The Observer:
People:
- August 22, 1988 - review of Libra by Ralph Novak,
pp. 28-29
Publishers Weekly:
- July 14, 1997 - review of Underworld, p. 67
Rolling Stone:
- August 5, 1971 - review of Americana by Nelson Algren,
p. 52
Salon:
San Francisco Chronicle:
- October 31, 1982 - "The Alphabet Obsession" review
of The Names by Rob Swigart
- January 27, 1985 - "A Detective of Our Mundane Culture"
review of White Noise by Paul Skenazy
- July 24, 1988 - "A Loss of Innocence" review of
Libra by John C. Hawley
- June 9, 1991 - "DeLillo's Elegy to Language" review
of Mao II by Paul Skenazy
- September 21, 1997 - "We
Are What We Waste" review of Underworld by David
Wiegand, Book Review page 1, 6
- February 7, 2001 - "DeLillo's
Bursts of Brilliance" review of The Body Artist
by David Kipen
Saturday Review:
- September 3, 1977 - review of Players by Thomas LeClair
- September 16, 1978 - "No Health Anywhere" review
of Running Dog by Anthony Burgess, p. 38. Also contains
"What I Know About Don DeLillo and Certain Other Unnamed
Persons" by Gordon Lish
- March/April 1985 - brief review of White Noise by
Anna Shapiro
Slate:
- September 23, 1997 - review of Underworld by Walter
Kirn
Spin:
- October, 1997 - "The Theory of Everything" review
of Underworld by Donald Antrim, p. 72
Sueddeutsche Zeitung:
- November 22, 1997 - "Das Leben is ein Roman" review
of Underworld by Michael Althen
Sydney Morning Herald
- October 25, 1997 - "DeLillo Hits a Homer" review
of Underworld by Alan Attwood
- November 22, 1997 - "Cold War and Peace" review
of Underworld
Time:
- April 17, 1972 - briefly noted, unsigned review of End
Zone
- April 23, 1973 - review of Great Jones Street by R.Z.
Sheppard
- June 7, 1976 - review of Rather's Star by Paul Gray
- November 8, 1982 - "Petrofiction" review of The
Names by J.D. Reed, p. 88
- January 21, 1985 - "Death 'n' Things" review of
White Noise by R.Z. Sheppard, pp. 71, 73
- August 1, 1988 - "Reimagining Death in Dallas"
review of Libra by Paul Gray, p. 65
- June 10, 1991 - "Men Who Work Underground" review
of Mao II by Paul Gray, p. 68
- September 29, 1997 - "How
Did We Get Here" review of Underworld by Paul
Gray, p. 89-90
- January 29, 2001 - "Shadows
from Beyond" review of The Body Artist by Paul
Gray, p. 65.
Times (London):
- January 23, 1986 - review of White Noise by Hugh Barnes,
p. 15
- November 10, 1988 - review of Libra by Bryan Appleyard,
p. 21
- February 14, 2001 - "The body in question" review
of The Body Artist by Scott Bradfield
Sunday Times (London):
- January 26, 1986 - review of White Noise by Nicholas
Shrimpton, p. 36
- November 13, 1988 - "Trials of Lee Harvey Oswald"
review of Libra by D. J. Taylor, p. G7
- September 8, 1991 - "Meaningful relationships"
review of Mao II by Anthony Clare, p. 6-7
- January 4, 1998 - "Out to get us" review of Underworld
by Michael Dibdin
- February 11, 2001 - "Twisted sister" review of
The Body Artist by John Sutherland
Times Literary Supplement (London):
- September 14, 1973 - "Beefcake blues" review of
End Zone
- December 9, 1983 - "Mumbo-jumbo" review of The
Names by Mary Kathleen Benet
- January 17, 1986 - "The disconnected view" review
of White Noise by Roz Kaveney, p. 56
- November 18, 1988 - "Coming up empty" review of
Libra by Christopher Hitchens, p. 1283
- August 30, 1991 - "Shaping up to catastrophe" review
of Mao II by Julian Loose, pp. 20-21
- December 26, 1997 - "Hitting the Home Run" review
of Underworld by Paul Quinn, p. 21
USA Today:
Village Voice:
- April 30, 1985 - "Death by Inches" review of White
Noise by Albert Mobilio, pp. 49-50
- June 18, 1991 - "Mao, Voyager" review of Mao
II by Richard Gehr
Voice Literary Supplement:
- December, 1981
- November, 1982 - "Don DeLillo Breaks the Language Barrier"
review of The Names by Al J. Sperone, pp. 15-16
- October, 1988 - "White Magic" review of Libra
by Greg Tate, pp. 39-41
- Sept 16, 1997 - "National Enquirer: Don DeLillo Gets
Under America's Skin" review of Underworld by Andrew
O'Hagan (pp. 8-10).
Washington Post:
- Sept 22, 1988 - "Shallow Look at the Mind of an Assasin"
op-ed piece on Libra by George Will, p. A25
Washington Post Book World:
- April 16, 1972 - "A kick in the head" review of
End Zone by S.K. Oberbeck
- April 15, 1973 - page one review of Great Jones Street
by Webster Schott
- June 13, 1976 - "Your Number is Up" review of Ratner's
Star by J.D. O'Hara
- August 21, 1977 - "The Flowers Are All Poison"
review of Players by William Kennedy
- October 15, 1978 - review of Running Dog by Curt Suplee
- October 10, 1982 - "Don DeLillo's Terminology of Terror"
review of The Names by Jonathan Yardley
- January 13, 1985 - "Don DeLillo's American Nightmare"
review of White Noise by Jonathan Yardley
- July 31, 1988 - "Appointment in Dallas" review
of Libra by Jonathan Yardley
- May 26, 1991 - "The Future Belongs to Crowds" review
of Mao II by Sven Birkerts
- September 28, 1997 - "The Blast Felt Round the World"
review of Underworld by Michael Dirda
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Last updated: 28-JUN-2003