--- product_id: 12161129 title: "Underworld: A Novel" price: "€ 45.05" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 7 url: https://www.desertcart.com.cy/products/12161129-underworld-a-novel store_origin: CY region: Cyprus --- # Underworld: A Novel **Price:** € 45.05 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Underworld: A Novel - **How much does it cost?** € 45.05 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.cy](https://www.desertcart.com.cy/products/12161129-underworld-a-novel) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description desertcart.com: Underworld: A Novel: 9780684848150: DeLillo, Don: Books Review: It reminds me of a Pynchon romp, which is a good thing. - UNDERWORLD is so large in scope, its sprawling 800+ pages can barely contain it. It reminds me of a Pynchon romp, which is a good thing. UNDERWORLD encompasses nearly a half century of American life and history, following a cast of characters through the Cold War, the duck-and-cover drills, the Vietnam War, sixties unrest, the civil rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1965 Northeast US Blackout, among other major events. It begins with a 60-page prologue putting the reader at the Polo Grounds in New York on that day in October 1951 when Bobby Thompson hits a pennant-winning home run for the NY Giants off of Brooklyn Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca. It came to be called “The Shot Heard Round the World.” Though in reality the home run ball was never found, DeLillo imagines it recovered by a scrawny kid, Cotter Martin, and proceeds loosely to follow the ownership of that ball, in a sort of six-degrees of separation manner, down through the decades. Their paths crisscross, intersect and overlap in an amazing display of literary skill. For example, on page 608 we see Charles Wainwright Jr., one time owner of the ball, navigating a B-52 bomber over Vietnam in 1969, the very same B-52 dubbed ‘Long Tall Sally’ -- with cheeky nose art to prove it -- the very same plane mothballed and depicted in the opening chapters circa 1992 as the canvas for Klara Sax and her band of desert artists. There are many such links, past, present, future. There is nothing here in UNDERWORLD that passes for a plot. Not really. DeLillo builds his edifice with vignettes, short clipped sections, sometimes abruptly shifting in person, place and time. UNDERWORLD is visual, cinematic, in style. His dialogue, unlike any author I’ve read, rings true, authentic, and captures that pragmatic, nonverbal element in conversation, the way shared histories, context, and physical gestures fill in the gaps. And then there’s the conversations that don’t click at all, people just talking past one another. But something else important happened on that day when Thompson hit the home run, something of a more ominous sort that would change lives: the Soviet Union exploded their first atomic bomb. Another “shot heard round the world.” From the 1951 events, the Giants-Dodgers game and the Soviet test explosion, DeLillo jumps to 1992 and the Arizona desert and a group of artists using mothballed B-52s as their canvass. From there, the novel moves backward chronologically, back to 1951. Was this to mimic the countdown of a rocket, or atomic blast? No matter, it works. We see some of the characters in their full development in 1992, then over the next 700+ pages learn how they got that way. It’s a huge cast of characters, many historical figures like J. Edgar Hoover, Frank Sinatra, Lenny Bruce, Jackie Gleason, and Harry Caray. If there is an overriding theme or motif in the novel, it is the obsession with trash. Garbage. Where the home run baseball is the antithesis of trash - a treasured piece of baseball history - the atomic bomb has the ability to turn the world to trash. And then there’s the problem of the spent plutonium, that ultimate of all hazardous wastes. Even one of the main characters, Nick Shay, owner of the 1951 baseball, works for an international waste company. The Jesuits taught me to examine things for second meanings and deeper connections. Were they thinking about waste? We were waste managers, waste giants, we processed universal waste. Waste has a solemn aura now, an aspect of untouchability. White containers of plutonium waste with yellow caution tags. Handle carefully. Even the lowest household trash is closely observed. People look at their garbage differently now, seeing every bottle and crushed carton in a planetary context. [88] The writing is as good as it gets. And while there is certainly joy in the first reading, I’m finding it equally entertaining after turning that final page to return to the first chapters and reacquaint myself with the characters I just left, forty years older in DeLillo’s reverse chronology, and a few months after I’d begun reading. Like a lot of post-modern literature, UNDERWORLD isn’t for those looking for linear plotting, or plotting at all, for that matter. And the characters are not particularly fleshed out. But the journey is certainly worth the time and effort. Review: Look Elsewhere for an Easy Read - If you're someone used to reading page turners like James Patterson novels or other potato chip fiction, this isn't the novel for you. If you want to read something that is a sumptuous multi course feast that will stick to your ribs then I recommend this novel. That all being said, you have to have the gumption to actually sit down and read this beast of a novel. It comes it at over 800 pages. It follows multiple characters and only in a small section does it actually give you the date in which the events are happening. The novel is told in some sections from the point of view of a waste management executive who was a juvenile delinquent named Nick Shay. His brother was a chess prodigy who now designs weapons for a secretive Pentagon project. Their father was a minor bookmaker who was/wasn't killed by the Mafia in New York City when the boys were young. The novel intros with the 1951 National League Pennant where Bobby Thompson blasts a home run to win the pennant. Jay Edgar Hoover, Jackie Gleason, and other notables including Jay Edgar Hoover are present at the game. Hoover gets an urgent message during the game that the Soviets have just tested their first nuclear device. This sets up the swirling series of events which intertwine like a fabric spun from a loom. These characters are all astraddle of two different ages. Don't read this novel looking for a easily discernible plot. Don't read the characters like the entire story arc of their lives will be laid out for you. If you're hoping the young scamp in the beginning of the novel who fights for the Bobby Thompson home run will get old in the novel, get married, have children, then you're out of luck. Delillo treats many of his characters like pebbles and rocks in the stream of life that he is portraying. Like life, they are with you for a moment, they make you smile, cry, or annoyed and then they're gone. Forever. This novel is a wonderful antidote and inoculation for the fractious Facebook existence that is spreading through the world. If you're a patient person, if you've already tackled novels of substance, girth, and heft such as other Delillo novels, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, or anything by Leo Tolstoy you may be ready to try and tackle this one. It's well worth the effort. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #34,674 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #220 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction #646 in Classic Literature & Fiction #1,470 in Literary Fiction (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars (1,378) | | Dimensions | 5.25 x 1.8 x 8 inches | | Edition | First Edition | | ISBN-10 | 0684848155 | | ISBN-13 | 978-0684848150 | | Item Weight | 1.45 pounds | | Language | English | | Print length | 848 pages | | Publication date | January 1, 2003 | | Publisher | Scribner | ## Images ![Underworld: A Novel - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/817JUIGPL-L.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It reminds me of a Pynchon romp, which is a good thing. *by M***N on March 26, 2017* UNDERWORLD is so large in scope, its sprawling 800+ pages can barely contain it. It reminds me of a Pynchon romp, which is a good thing. UNDERWORLD encompasses nearly a half century of American life and history, following a cast of characters through the Cold War, the duck-and-cover drills, the Vietnam War, sixties unrest, the civil rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1965 Northeast US Blackout, among other major events. It begins with a 60-page prologue putting the reader at the Polo Grounds in New York on that day in October 1951 when Bobby Thompson hits a pennant-winning home run for the NY Giants off of Brooklyn Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca. It came to be called “The Shot Heard Round the World.” Though in reality the home run ball was never found, DeLillo imagines it recovered by a scrawny kid, Cotter Martin, and proceeds loosely to follow the ownership of that ball, in a sort of six-degrees of separation manner, down through the decades. Their paths crisscross, intersect and overlap in an amazing display of literary skill. For example, on page 608 we see Charles Wainwright Jr., one time owner of the ball, navigating a B-52 bomber over Vietnam in 1969, the very same B-52 dubbed ‘Long Tall Sally’ -- with cheeky nose art to prove it -- the very same plane mothballed and depicted in the opening chapters circa 1992 as the canvas for Klara Sax and her band of desert artists. There are many such links, past, present, future. There is nothing here in UNDERWORLD that passes for a plot. Not really. DeLillo builds his edifice with vignettes, short clipped sections, sometimes abruptly shifting in person, place and time. UNDERWORLD is visual, cinematic, in style. His dialogue, unlike any author I’ve read, rings true, authentic, and captures that pragmatic, nonverbal element in conversation, the way shared histories, context, and physical gestures fill in the gaps. And then there’s the conversations that don’t click at all, people just talking past one another. But something else important happened on that day when Thompson hit the home run, something of a more ominous sort that would change lives: the Soviet Union exploded their first atomic bomb. Another “shot heard round the world.” From the 1951 events, the Giants-Dodgers game and the Soviet test explosion, DeLillo jumps to 1992 and the Arizona desert and a group of artists using mothballed B-52s as their canvass. From there, the novel moves backward chronologically, back to 1951. Was this to mimic the countdown of a rocket, or atomic blast? No matter, it works. We see some of the characters in their full development in 1992, then over the next 700+ pages learn how they got that way. It’s a huge cast of characters, many historical figures like J. Edgar Hoover, Frank Sinatra, Lenny Bruce, Jackie Gleason, and Harry Caray. If there is an overriding theme or motif in the novel, it is the obsession with trash. Garbage. Where the home run baseball is the antithesis of trash - a treasured piece of baseball history - the atomic bomb has the ability to turn the world to trash. And then there’s the problem of the spent plutonium, that ultimate of all hazardous wastes. Even one of the main characters, Nick Shay, owner of the 1951 baseball, works for an international waste company. The Jesuits taught me to examine things for second meanings and deeper connections. Were they thinking about waste? We were waste managers, waste giants, we processed universal waste. Waste has a solemn aura now, an aspect of untouchability. White containers of plutonium waste with yellow caution tags. Handle carefully. Even the lowest household trash is closely observed. People look at their garbage differently now, seeing every bottle and crushed carton in a planetary context. [88] The writing is as good as it gets. And while there is certainly joy in the first reading, I’m finding it equally entertaining after turning that final page to return to the first chapters and reacquaint myself with the characters I just left, forty years older in DeLillo’s reverse chronology, and a few months after I’d begun reading. Like a lot of post-modern literature, UNDERWORLD isn’t for those looking for linear plotting, or plotting at all, for that matter. And the characters are not particularly fleshed out. But the journey is certainly worth the time and effort. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Look Elsewhere for an Easy Read *by J***S on November 24, 2013* If you're someone used to reading page turners like James Patterson novels or other potato chip fiction, this isn't the novel for you. If you want to read something that is a sumptuous multi course feast that will stick to your ribs then I recommend this novel. That all being said, you have to have the gumption to actually sit down and read this beast of a novel. It comes it at over 800 pages. It follows multiple characters and only in a small section does it actually give you the date in which the events are happening. The novel is told in some sections from the point of view of a waste management executive who was a juvenile delinquent named Nick Shay. His brother was a chess prodigy who now designs weapons for a secretive Pentagon project. Their father was a minor bookmaker who was/wasn't killed by the Mafia in New York City when the boys were young. The novel intros with the 1951 National League Pennant where Bobby Thompson blasts a home run to win the pennant. Jay Edgar Hoover, Jackie Gleason, and other notables including Jay Edgar Hoover are present at the game. Hoover gets an urgent message during the game that the Soviets have just tested their first nuclear device. This sets up the swirling series of events which intertwine like a fabric spun from a loom. These characters are all astraddle of two different ages. Don't read this novel looking for a easily discernible plot. Don't read the characters like the entire story arc of their lives will be laid out for you. If you're hoping the young scamp in the beginning of the novel who fights for the Bobby Thompson home run will get old in the novel, get married, have children, then you're out of luck. Delillo treats many of his characters like pebbles and rocks in the stream of life that he is portraying. Like life, they are with you for a moment, they make you smile, cry, or annoyed and then they're gone. Forever. This novel is a wonderful antidote and inoculation for the fractious Facebook existence that is spreading through the world. If you're a patient person, if you've already tackled novels of substance, girth, and heft such as other Delillo novels, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, or anything by Leo Tolstoy you may be ready to try and tackle this one. It's well worth the effort. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review *by M***L on March 17, 2013* Magnífiico libro. Muy bien escrito: uno de los libros que se quedarán en mi biblioteca y seguro reeleré. Lo recomiendo fervientemente. ## Frequently Bought Together - Underworld: A Novel - White Noise (Contemporary American Fiction) - Libra (Contemporary American Fiction) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.com.cy/products/12161129-underworld-a-novel](https://www.desertcart.com.cy/products/12161129-underworld-a-novel) --- *Product available on Desertcart Cyprus* *Store origin: CY* *Last updated: 2026-04-22*