"Mao II" is an extraordinary novel by Don DeLillo, exploring the complex interplay between words and images, novelists and terrorists, the mass mind and the arch-individualist.

At the heart of the book is Bill Gray, a famous reclusive writer who escapes the failed novel he has been working on for many years. He enters the world of political violence, a nightscape of Semtex explosives and hostages locked in basement rooms.

Bill's dangerous passage leaves two people stranded: his brilliant, fixated assistant, Scott, and the strange young woman who is Scott's lover—and Bill's.

This novel is a profound exploration of the interplay between art and terror, the individual and the collective, delivered with grim humor and sharp insight.