White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and their four ultramodern offspring, as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism.
Winner of the 1985 National Book Award, this narrative captures the particular strangeness of life lived when the fear of death cannot be denied, repressed, or obscured and ponders the role of the family in a time when the very meaning of our existence is under threat.
Globalia offers a daring political satire that dissects the mechanisms of oligarchic neoliberal democracy. Behind the bloody distinctions of nation and race, a universalizing democracy has been imposed in Globalia. Society now enjoys health and prosperity but is numbed in a consumptive paroxysm. Everyone speaks the same language, are radical environmentalists, neurasthenics, idle, and addicted to cosmetic surgery. To maintain cohesion, residents are kept in an unconscious self-absorption by the media and frightened by continuous terrorist attacks. As the terrorist attacks are diminishing, the Globalian authorities have decided to create a New Enemy to guarantee terror. This enemy will be an element of the system whose function is to cement its values even more... A humorous farce of contemporary society and an unflattering reflection of a probable future.