Starred review from December 14, 2015
DeLillo's 17th novel features a man arriving at a strange, remote compound (we are told the nearest city is Bishkek)—a set-up similar to a few other DeLillo books, Mao II and Ratner's Star among them. This time, the protagonist is Jeffrey Lockhart, who is joining his billionaire father, Ross, to say good-bye to Ross's second wife (and Jeffrey's stepmother), Artis. The compound is the home of the Convergence, a scientific endeavor that preserves people indefinitely; in Artis's case, it's until there's a cure for her ailing health. But as with any novel by DeLillo, our preeminent brain-needler, the plot is window dressing for his preoccupations: obsessive sallies into death, information, and all kinds of other things. Longtime readers will not be surprised that there's a two-page rumination on mannequins. But a few components elevate Zero K, which is among DeLillo's finest work. For one, DeLillo has become better about picking his spots—the asides rarely, if ever, drag, and they are consistently surprising and funny. And his focus and curiosity have moved far into the future: much of this novel's (and Ross's) attention is paid to humankind's relationship and responsibility to what's to come. What's left behind and forgotten is the present, here represented by Jeffrey, the son whom Ross abandoned when he was 13. DeLillo sneaks a heartbreaking story of a son attempting to reconnect with his father into his thought-provoking novel.
July 4, 2016
In recent years, reader Sadoski has parlayed his extensive stage experience on and off Broadway into several notable television roles, most recently in HBO’s The Newsroom and CBS’s Life in Pieces. In bringing to life the audio edition of the latest novel from literary giant DeLillo, Sadoski faces no small task, given that DeLillo narratives tend to embrace a postmodern style steeped in introspective monologue. The story line is narrated from the point of view of Jeff Lockhart, an angst-ridden 30-something trying to make sense of his billionaire father’s secretive venture to allow the aged and infirm to freeze their bodies until future medical breakthroughs allow human immortality. On the domestic front, Jeff juggles his lack of career focus with a similarly scattershot romantic relationship with a devoted teacher and single mother whose troubled preteen son displays a bizarre obsession with terrorism and related global events. Sadoski adapts himself well to the stream-of-consciousness style of prose; he gives a Jeff a consistent voice for processing the disparate plot elements. But the listening experience most likely remains too demanding for this style of novel. A Scribner hardcover.