From Powells.com
Staff Pick
Zero K is built on a sci-fi premise that expands outwards to become an exploration of what meaning life can hold in the absence of death. The novel moves quickly despite its philosophical preoccupations and manages to present both a compelling story and a thought experiment in one small package. Recommended By Ashleigh B., Powells.com
A stark, sci-fi-esque novel blending in elements of Middle East versus West politics, technology, religion, and philosophy — all done in Delillo's signature precision and brevity. I'll call it science fiction for the poet in all of us. Recommended By Melissa A., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
The richest, wisest, funniest, and most moving novel in years from Don Delillo, one of the great American novelists of our time—an ode to language, the heart of our humanity; a meditation on death and an embrace of life.
Jeffrey Lockharts father, Ross, is a George Soros-like billionaire now in his sixties, with a younger wife, Artis, whose health is failing. Ross is the primary investor in a deeply remote and secret compound where death is controlled and bodies are preserved until a future moment when medicine and technology can reawaken them. Jeffrey joins Ross and Artis at the compound to say “an uncertain farewell” to her as she surrenders her body.
Ross Lockhart is not driven by the hope for immortality, for power and wealth beyond the grave. He is driven by love for his wife, for Artis, without whom he feels life is not worth living. It is that which compels him to submit to death long before his time. Jeffrey heartily disapproves. He is committed to living, to “the mingled astonishments of our time, here, on earth.”
Thus begins an emotionally resonant novel that weighs the darkness of the world—terrorism, floods, fires, famine, death—against the beauty of everyday life; love, awe, “the intimate touch of earth and sun.” Brilliantly observed and infused with humor, Don Delillos Zero K is an acute observation about the fragility and meaning of life, about embracing our family, this world, our language, and our humanity.
Review
"Among DeLillo's finest work... DeLillo sneaks a heartbreaking story of a son attempting to reconnect with his father into his thought-provoking novel." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Daring... provocative... exquisite... captures the swelling fears of our age." Ron Charles, Washington Post
Review
“Brilliant and astonishing… a masterpiece… full of DeLillo's amazing inimitable scalpel perceptions, fluent in the ideas we'll be talking about 20 years from now… Zero K somehow manages to renew DeLillo's longstanding obsessions while also striking deeply and swiftly at the reader's emotions….The effect is transcendent.” Charles Finch, Chicago Tribune
Review
"One of the most mysterious, emotionally moving and formally rewarding books of DeLillo's long carer... Unexpectedly touching... [DeLillo offers] consolation simply by enacting so well the mystery and awe of the real world... I finished it stunned and grateful." Joshua Ferris, The New York Times Book Review
Review
“Mr. DeLillo’s haunting new novel, Zero K — his most persuasive since his astonishing 1997 masterpiece, Underworld — is a kind of bookend to White Noise (1985): somber and coolly futuristic, where that earlier book was satirical and darkly comic....All the themes that have animated Mr. DeLillo’s novels over the years are threaded through Zero K — from the seduction of technology and mass media to the power of money and the fear of chaos....like a chamber music piece....reminds us of his almost Day-Glo powers as a writer and his understanding of the strange, contorted shapes that eternal human concerns (with mortality and time) can take in the new millennium.” Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Synopsis
New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book
The wisest, richest, funniest, and most moving novel in years from Don DeLillo, one of the great American novelists of our time an ode to language, at the heart of our humanity, a meditation on death, and an embrace of life.
Jeffrey Lockhart s father, Ross, is a billionaire in his sixties, with a younger wife, Artis Martineau, whose health is failing. Ross is the primary investor in a remote and secret compound where death is exquisitely controlled and bodies are preserved until a future time when biomedical advances and new technologies can return them to a life of transcendent promise. Jeff joins Ross and Artis at the compound to say an uncertain farewell to her as she surrenders her body.
We are born without choosing to be. Should we have to die in the same manner? Isn t it a human glory to refuse to accept a certain fate?
These are the questions that haunt the novel and its memorable characters, and it is Ross Lockhart, most particularly, who feels a deep need to enter another dimension and awake to a new world. For his son, this is indefensible. Jeff, the book s narrator, is committed to living, to experiencing the mingled astonishments of our time, here, on earth.
Don DeLillo s seductive, spectacularly observed and brilliant new novel weighs the darkness of the world terrorism, floods, fires, famine, plague against the beauty and humanity of everyday life; love, awe, the intimate touch of earth and sun.
Zero K is glorious."
About the Author
Don DeLillo is the author of fifteen novels, including Zero K, Underworld, Falling Man, White Noise, and Libra. He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize for his complete body of work, and the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2010, he was awarded the PEN/Saul Bellow Prize. The Angel Esmeralda was a finalist for the 2011 Story Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In 2012, DeLillo received the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for his body of work.