White Noise was the first book I finished this year. Published in 1985, the novel by American author Don DeLillo isn’t something I would normally pick up—but it became a family project.
My husband suggested starting a family book club. My daughter and I are avid fiction readers; he is not. So we let him take the lead, hoping it would help him feel invested. He worked hard to choose something he cared about and believed would resonate with all three of us.
At first, it didn’t.
DeLillo’s writing is spare and clinical rather than lyrical, and he rarely lingers on setting or emotional texture. I struggled to get traction early on, but I kept going. As someone who was a teenager in the 1980s, I recognize that the era wasn’t exactly sunny—but White Noise presents a particularly bleak and exaggerated take on consumerism, media saturation, and environmental fragility. Reading it often felt like the literary equivalent of doom scrolling.
The protagonist, Jack Gladney, is a college professor and Hitler studies scholar on his fourth marriage. He is deeply self-absorbed, largely uncritical of himself, and strikingly passive. Things simply happen to him—from a chemical disaster in his town to his wife’s depression. Jack is a ponderer, not a doer, and the novel mirrors that quality. With few redeeming characters and little emotional warmth, the book can feel preachy and oddly disengaged—particularly when it comes to women, who are present but rarely centered in meaningful ways.
With character development largely off the table, the book relies on its themes—and here, it fares better. DeLillo’s concerns about technology, media consumption, and environmental neglect remain relevant. We still struggle with screen time (then television, now phones), and we continue to prioritize convenience over long-term environmental health.
If anything, those anxieties have intensified. Social media and AI have reshaped how we think, focus, and create. The environmental toll of modern technology—from rare earth mineral extraction to the millions of gallons of ultra-pure water required for chip fabrication, along with toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases—is staggering. One can only imagine what DeLillo would make of today’s landscape.
Still, relevance alone doesn’t make the book enjoyable.
What did make the experience worthwhile was reading it together. My husband and I spent a long ski lift ride discussing the ideas behind the novel. We agreed that the writing was cold and clinical. We disagreed on whether the absence of a strong female presence should matter. He argued that it wasn’t a fair standard; I disagreed. For much of literary history—certainly pre-1980—the overwhelming majority of stories centered men. There is still catching up to do.
Critics at the time disagreed with me. White Noise was very well received upon publication and won the 1985 National Book Award for Fiction, cementing DeLillo’s reputation. My husband played a convincing defender of the book, even if he didn’t convert me.
In the end, we agreed on one thing: reading together is something we want to continue.
Would I recommend White Noise? No. It feels dated, emotionally distant, and more academic than engaging.
But would I recommend a book club with your spouse? Absolutely.
One line summary:
A famously smart novel that feels emotionally flat—provocative in theory, exhausting in practice.
For fans of:
Big ideas, cultural pessimism, media theory, and book clubs that enjoy debating a book more than loving it.
Where I read it:
At home—but its best moments happened off the page, mid–ski lift, dissecting it with my husband.
Get in on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3ZQOKu2
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