Winner of the National Book Award – a “eerie, brilliant, and touching” (New York Times) family drama about mass culture and the numbing effects of technology
Jack Gladney teaches Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America where his colleagues include New York expatriates who want to immerse themselves in "American magic and dread." Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by their love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the usual rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism.Then a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives, an "airborne toxic event" unleashed by an industrial accident. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladney family--radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmerings--pulsing with life, yet heralding the danger of death.
- ISBN10 0670803731
- ISBN13 9780670803736
- Publish Date 31 January 1985
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 October 2004
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Viking Books
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 326
- Language English