War as Haiku: The Politics of Don DeLillo’s Late Style

Abstract

In the wake of Underworld (1997), Don DeLillo’s work has been cast largely in a minor key. In this essay, I will focus on Point Omega, the work that I believe most clearly illuminates the political implications of DeLillo’s late style as it tackles the consequences of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. More broadly, I hope to connect Point Omega to the work of DeLillo’s contemporaries that have also speculated on the historical and political implications of the War on Terror. Centering on Point Omega, I am interested in how DeLillo has adopted a distinctive narrative form in his most recent fiction that frequently unsettles and complicates the historical narratives that he had established in his earlier work.