A novel by Don DeLillo, 1982
Published by Knopf, 1982, 339 pages. Jacket design by Fred
Marcellino.
British first edition published by Harvester, 1983.
Paperbacks issued by Vintage,
starting 1983; see The Names cover gallery.
Dedication: "to Barbara" (DeLillo's wife)
What it's about:
Set in Greece (where DeLillo lived for a few years, approx. 1979-1982) and the Middle
East, a novel involving U.S. businessmen and terrorists.
Here's the original dust jacket
copy.
First line:
"For a long time I stayed away from the Acropolis."
What it's really about:
From the DeCurtis interview: "In The Names, I spent
a lot of time searching for the kind of sun-cut precision I found
in Greek light and in the Greek landscape. I wanted a prose which
would have the clarity and the accuracy which the natural environment
at its best in that part of the world seems to inspire in our
own senses. I mean, there were periods in Greece when I tasted
and saw and heard with much more sharpness and clarity than I'd
ever done before or since. And I wanted to discover a sentence,
a way of writing sentences that would be the prose counterpart
to that clarity--that sensuous clarity of the Aegean experience."
Check out the The Names Media Watch for contemporary reviews of the novel.