Underworld

novel by DeLillo

Written by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last updated

July 16, 2026

Quick Summary

Don DeLillo's novel Underworld is a sprawling commentary on American history and culture during the Cold War era. The novel uses the journey of a baseball hit by New York Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson for a pennant-winning home run in 1951 as a narrative thread to explore various aspects of American life and society. It delves into themes of waste, consumerism, and the search for meaning in a world saturated by mass culture and politics.12

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

2 Britannica Sources

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.

American literature
Multicultural writing
…family portraits; and Don DeLillo’s Underworld (1997), a brooding, resonant, oblique account of the Cold War era as seen through the eyes of both fictional characters and historical figures. All three novels testify to a belated convergence of Social Realism and Pynchonesque invention. Pynchon himself returned to form with sprawling,…
Read More
…family portraits; and Don DeLillo’s Underworld (1997), a brooding, resonant, oblique account of the Cold War era as seen through the eyes of both fictional characters and historical figures. All three novels testify to a belated convergence of Social Realism and Pynchonesque invention. Pynchon himself returned to form with sprawling,…
Read More

Don DeLillo
…acclaim for the sprawling novel Underworld (1997), which provides a commentary on American history and culture in the Cold War era, in part by tracing the imagined journeys of the baseball that New York Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson hit for a pennant-winning home run in 1951. DeLillo’s subsequent works of…
Read More
…acclaim for the sprawling novel Underworld (1997), which provides a commentary on American history and culture in the Cold War era, in part by tracing the imagined journeys of the baseball that New York Giants outfielder Bobby Thomson hit for a pennant-winning home run in 1951. DeLillo’s subsequent works of…
Read More