description: "Compelling ...strange and wonderful and frightening". ("New Yorker"). DeLillo's seventh novel is an exotic thriller. Set mostly in Greece, it concerns a mysterious 'language cult' seemingly behind a number of unexplained murders. Obsessed by news of this ritualistic violence, an American risk analyst is drawn to search for an explanation. We follow his progress on an obsessive journey that begins to take over his life and the lives of those closest to him. In addition to offering a series of precise character studies, "The Names" explores the intersection of language and culture, the perception of America from both inside and outside its borders, and the impact that narration has on the facts of a story. Meditative and probing, DeLillo how does one cope with the fact that the act of articulation is simultaneously capable of defining and circumscriptively restricting access to the self? "A serious and complicated novel which deserves praise ...an outstandingly well-written and constructed book". ("Guardian").
language: English
title: The Names
titlecomplete: The Names
characters: Tap, Kathryn, Del Nearing, James Axton, Charles Maitland, Ann Maitland, Owen Brademas, George Rowser, Frank Volterra
genres: Fiction, American, The United States Of America, Mystery, Greece, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, 20th Century, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 4399
places: Greece, Athens
publisher: Picador