Plot Summary – Jack Gladney is the creator and chairman of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill. This is the story of his absurd life; a life that is going well enough, until a chemical spill from a rail car releases an ‘Airborne Toxic Event’ and Jack is forced to confront his biggest fear – his own mortality.

★★★★★ 

I will try my best not to come off as incredibly pretentious in this review. I’ll admit, it’s only fairly recently over the last year that I’ve gotten back into reading after a four to five-year slump, and maybe my reaction to this book comes from my inexperience. I really loved this book. Now that’s not really a hot take because this is considered one of the great novels of the twentieth century, but I really don’t think it will appeal to the average modern-day reader. This statement is what I feared would make me appear to be snobbish. Let me try to elaborate. For the first hundred pages, I was constantly floored by the writing but kept wondering what the point of the book was. This was the ‘conventional book’ reader in me. I expected plot and conflict, and instead, I got a lot of prose that is incredibly rich but ultimately doesn’t go anywhere. Feeling defeated, I nearly gave up on the book, but for some reason, I persevered and kept reading. The second part of the book gave me everything I wanted, I was back on board. I was invested now since there was a plot and characters were doing things that were interesting and morally ambiguous. This was not rich prose in service of nothing. Then I reached the third part, and suddenly something clicked in me. This is no ordinary book. If you’re looking for a normal story or at least a conventional book, this isn’t for you. This is deeply contemplative and unlike anything I’ve ever read. Maybe I’m new to post-modernism, so this feeling is alien to me, but I was blown away by the final third of this book. It elevated it from a solid read to an all-time favourite. Every time I thought I knew where the book would go, it took another unexpected turn and not in a cheap, plot-twist way. Everything was foreshadowed and given context, so the long preamble suddenly became relevant. Don DeLillo is a master of his craft, and this book is absolutely incredible. It had me sitting in silence for a good 30 minutes contemplating all the unique questions it poses. I’ve never been so fascinated by a character and their internal monologue. This has recontextualized literature itself for me, and that’s gonna sound so obnoxious, but that’s genuinely what I feel. I was absolutely blown away by this book, and it’s already an all-time favourite for me. Cannot wait to see how Noah Baumbach adapts it.