#9 Americana Don DeLillo

"That's what we really want. We want to be totally engulfed by all the so-called worst elements of our national life and character. We want to come to terms with the false anger we so often display at the increasing signs of sterility and violence in our culture."

Jacket Copy: At twenty-eight, David Bell is the American dream come true. He has fought his way to the top, surviving office purges and scandals to become a high-powered television executive. David's world is made up of the images that flicker across America's screens, the fantasies that enthrall America's imagination. And then the dream--and the dream-making--become a nightmare. At the height of his success, David sets out to rediscover reality. Camera in hand, he journeys across the country in a mad and moving attempt to capture a sense of his own and his country's past, present and future.

Similar to: Nicholson Baker, Jay McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City," Nathanael West

Highlights:
--dripping with irony and sarcasm, yet still manages to be authentic and sincere
--trains a keenly perceptive eye on the darker parts of being American that people are reluctant to acknowledge
--this book is about the passage of Time and the inevitability of death more than anything. It's about how we as Americans attempt to deal (and not deal) with those twin inescapable realities