What do you think?
Rate this book
Zero K
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.
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.
274 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2016
About the author
Don DeLillo
81 books6,730 followersDonald Richard DeLillo is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, the complexities of language, art, the advent of the Digital Age, mathematics, politics, economics, and sports.
DeLillo was already a well-regarded cult writer in 1985, when the publication of White Noise brought him widespread recognition and the National Book Award for fiction. He followed this in 1988 with Libra, a novel about the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II, about terrorism and the media's scrutiny of writers' private lives, and the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld, a historical novel that ranges in time from the dawn of the Cold War to the birth of the Internet. He was awarded the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the 2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
DeLillo has described his themes as "living in dangerous times" and "the inner life of the culture." In a 2005 interview, he said that writers "must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments... I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."
DeLillo was already a well-regarded cult writer in 1985, when the publication of White Noise brought him widespread recognition and the National Book Award for fiction. He followed this in 1988 with Libra, a novel about the Kennedy assassination. DeLillo won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II, about terrorism and the media's scrutiny of writers' private lives, and the William Dean Howells Medal for Underworld, a historical novel that ranges in time from the dawn of the Cold War to the birth of the Internet. He was awarded the 1999 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the 2013 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
DeLillo has described his themes as "living in dangerous times" and "the inner life of the culture." In a 2005 interview, he said that writers "must oppose systems. It's important to write against power, corporations, the state, and the whole system of consumption and of debilitating entertainments... I think writers, by nature, must oppose things, oppose whatever power tries to impose on us."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 15, 2025
3,5/5
Har lest det meste av DeLillos oeuvre med unntak av The Names og de nyeste romanene, og må erkjenne at det er ganske utrolig at han i en (daværende) alder av 79 fortsatt skrev så drivende godt. Få komponerer like stilige setninger og sylskarp dialog som The Don i sitt ess (Stian André vil nok syne meg og høyne med Pynchon, og deilig at begge gutta fortsatt tilsynelatende er i vigør og skriver prosa i særklasse). Må nesten gripe fatt på The Silence ila året. God påske!
Then she said, «He talks about the weather all the time. Not just today’s weather but the general phenomenon narrowed down to certain places. Why is Phoenix always hotter than Tuscon even though Tuscon is farther south? He does not tell me the answer. This is not something I would know, it is something he would know, amid he has no intention of sharing the knowledge. He likes to recite temperatures. The numbers tell him something. Tuscon one hundred and three degrees fahrenheit. He always specifies fahrenheit or celsius. He relishes both words. Phoenix one hundred and seven degrees fahrenheit. Baghdad. What is Baghdad today? […] Mumbai, he will say. He loves to say Mumbai. Mumbai. Yesterday, ninety-two degrees fahrenheit. Then he gives celsius. Then he checks one of his devices. Then he gives today. Then he gives tomorrow. Riyadh, he will say. He is disappointed when Riyadh loses out to another city. An emotional letdown.»
«You’re exaggerating.»
«Baghdad, he will say. One hundred and thirteen degrees fahrenheit. Riyadh. One hundred and nine degrees fahrenheit. He is making me disappear. His size, his presence in a room, he shrinks our apartment, can’t stay in one place, roams and talks, recites from memory, and his demands, his ultimatums, and the voice that issues them, with its own echo. I’m exaggerating slightly.»
Har lest det meste av DeLillos oeuvre med unntak av The Names og de nyeste romanene, og må erkjenne at det er ganske utrolig at han i en (daværende) alder av 79 fortsatt skrev så drivende godt. Få komponerer like stilige setninger og sylskarp dialog som The Don i sitt ess (Stian André vil nok syne meg og høyne med Pynchon, og deilig at begge gutta fortsatt tilsynelatende er i vigør og skriver prosa i særklasse). Må nesten gripe fatt på The Silence ila året. God påske!
Then she said, «He talks about the weather all the time. Not just today’s weather but the general phenomenon narrowed down to certain places. Why is Phoenix always hotter than Tuscon even though Tuscon is farther south? He does not tell me the answer. This is not something I would know, it is something he would know, amid he has no intention of sharing the knowledge. He likes to recite temperatures. The numbers tell him something. Tuscon one hundred and three degrees fahrenheit. He always specifies fahrenheit or celsius. He relishes both words. Phoenix one hundred and seven degrees fahrenheit. Baghdad. What is Baghdad today? […] Mumbai, he will say. He loves to say Mumbai. Mumbai. Yesterday, ninety-two degrees fahrenheit. Then he gives celsius. Then he checks one of his devices. Then he gives today. Then he gives tomorrow. Riyadh, he will say. He is disappointed when Riyadh loses out to another city. An emotional letdown.»
«You’re exaggerating.»
«Baghdad, he will say. One hundred and thirteen degrees fahrenheit. Riyadh. One hundred and nine degrees fahrenheit. He is making me disappear. His size, his presence in a room, he shrinks our apartment, can’t stay in one place, roams and talks, recites from memory, and his demands, his ultimatums, and the voice that issues them, with its own echo. I’m exaggerating slightly.»
October 15, 2016
Nå har jeg lest to bøker av DeLillo, og det kommer til å gå en stund før jeg leser neste. Jeg får ikke helt tak på skrivingen hans.
Det er glimt av magi i både denne og Underverden, hans murstein fra 1997. Likevel ble jeg ikke engasjert i særlig grad av noen av dem. Zero K handler om en amerikansk riking som har etablert et senter for nedfrysing av mennesker med tanke på oppvåkning en gang i framtiden. Ikke spesielt originalt, med andre ord. Skildringene fra innsiden av dette senteret fenget ikke meg, de minnet mest om ting jeg har sett på film. Handlingen flytter seg til New York i midtdelen, og forholdet mellom far (han med senteret) og sønn (som forteller historien) er en rød tråd i boka.
Zero K er mest av alt kjølig uten å bli spesielt presis eller skremmende på noen måte.
Det er glimt av magi i både denne og Underverden, hans murstein fra 1997. Likevel ble jeg ikke engasjert i særlig grad av noen av dem. Zero K handler om en amerikansk riking som har etablert et senter for nedfrysing av mennesker med tanke på oppvåkning en gang i framtiden. Ikke spesielt originalt, med andre ord. Skildringene fra innsiden av dette senteret fenget ikke meg, de minnet mest om ting jeg har sett på film. Handlingen flytter seg til New York i midtdelen, og forholdet mellom far (han med senteret) og sønn (som forteller historien) er en rød tråd i boka.
Zero K er mest av alt kjølig uten å bli spesielt presis eller skremmende på noen måte.
May 29, 2018
Denne ville jeg så veldig gjerne like, men jeg klarte aldri å komme helt inn i historien. Språket er godt, historien er fascinerende på et vis, men likevel synes jeg det store deler av boka bare er ord, lite handling. Kanskje var dette feil tidspunkt å lese den på, hvem vet. Skal prøve meg på litt mer Don DeLillo i fremtiden, tror egentlig jeg liker stilen hans.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
