A novel by Don DeLillo
Published by Houghton Mifflin, 1972, 242 pages. Jacket by Paul
Bacon.
British first published by Deutsch, 1973.
Paperbacks issued by Pocket 1973 (cover
image), and later by Penguin (cover
image).
Dedication: "to my parents"
What it's about:
A story of games, including college football and nuclear warfare,
set in Texas.
Here's the original dust jacket
copy.
First lines:
"Taft Robinson was the first black student to be enrolled
at Logos College in west Texas. They got him for his speed."
What it's really about:
From the LeClair interview: "It may be the case that with
End Zone I began to suspect that language was a subject
as well as an instrument in my work, although I'd find it hard
to say in what ways exactly."
In the 1988 DeCurtis interview he says: "End Zone wasn't about football. It's a fairly elusive novel. It seems to me to be about extreme places and extreme states of mind, more than anything else."
Critical Reaction:
Many critics felt that this was a real breakthrough for DeLillo.
A much more focused and original novel than Americana,
the New York Times Book Review featured End Zone on the
front page, and was very enthusiastic. Time magazine however
later called the book "much overpraised."
Next novel: Great Jones Street.
Back to DeLillo's novels.