NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • An “eerie, brilliant, and touching” (The New York Times) modern classic about mass culture and the numbing effects of technology.
“Tremendously funny . . . A stunning performance from one of our most intelligent novelists.”—The New Republic
The inspiration for the award-winning major motion picture starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig
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 murmurings—pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous.
- ISBN10 0140077022
- ISBN13 9780140077025
- Publish Date 7 January 1986 (first published 31 January 1985)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 25 October 2004
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Penguin Books
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 336
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780140077025