White Noise

Winner of the 1985 National Book Award, White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, professor of 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." <br /><br />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, sleepwalking through a world where "Coke Is It!" and the TV is always on.<br /><br />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 heralding the danger of death.<br /><br />With its ironic, satirical telling vision of the anxieties, absurdities, and mysteries of modern American life, White Noise is a masterpiece at once illuminating and darkly prophetic.