by Don DeLillo
First published 2007
Nick Shay carries a piece of history in his pocket: the baseball from Bobby Thomson's legendary 1951 home run that won the pennant for the Giants. That October afternoon when the Shot Heard Round the World sailed into the stands, America learned the Soviets had tested an atomic bomb. The triumph and terror of that moment ripple through the next four decades of Nick's life and the lives around him. DeLillo weaves together waste management executive Nick with a cast that includes comedian Lenny Bruce, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and other figures navigating the paranoia and promise of Cold War America. From the Bronx to the desert, from the 1950s to the 1990s, characters struggle with connection and isolation while nuclear anxiety shadows their daily existence. The novel moves between intimate moments and sweeping cultural shifts, showing how personal histories intersect with national trauma and how objects carry the weight of memory across generations.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-fiction, interconnected-narratives
Setting: Bronx, Desert
Period: 1950s, 1990s
832 pages · Hardcover · Scribner
Content warnings: anxiety