description: (1992 PEN/FAULKER AWARD) In MAO II, Don DeLillo presents an extraordinary new novel about words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist. At the heart of the book is Bill Gray, a famous reclusive writer who escapes the failed novel he has been working on for many years and enters the world of political violence when he gets the chance to aid a hostage trapped in a basement in war-torn Beirut, a nightscape of Semtex explosives. Gray's dangerous departure leaves two people his brilliant, fixated assistant, Scott, and the strange young woman who is Scott's lover - and Bill's. MAO II is a series of set-pieces built around the theme of searching for meaning in a post-modern world. "DeLillo's brilliant 10th novel...writing so piercingly exact, characters so palpable, dialogue so shimmering, that the ideas burn off like summer smoke and become skywriting." (Philadelphia Inquirer)
language: English
title: Mao II
titlecomplete: Mao II
characters: Bill Gray, Karen Janney, George Haddad
genres: Fiction, 20th Century, Classics, Contemporary, The United States Of America, American, Literary Fiction, Literature, United States, Novels
ratings_count: 11616
places: New York City, New York, New York (State), Mediterranean Sea, Manhattan, New York City, New York, Cyprus, Lebanon, Beirut, Athens, Greece
awards: awardedAt: 694252800000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 694252800000
name: PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
publisher: Books on Tape, Inc.