Reading Order
Mao II Reading Order
Mao II (1991) by Don DeLillo is a short, compressed novel about a reclusive novelist named Bill Gray — a figure modeled in part on Thomas Pynchon — who has been working on a novel for twenty-three years and has not published since his early work. Drawn out of hiding first to participate in a mass Unification Church wedding at Yankee Stadium, and then to Beirut in an attempt to secure the release of a kidnapped poet, Bill Gray finds himself confronting the question that drives the novel: in the late twentieth century, have terrorists replaced novelists as the people who change the imagination of the world? Mao II won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction in 1992 and remains one of DeLillo's finest and most concentrated works.
Where to start
Mao II (1991)
Complete Mao II Book List
- 1Buy
Mao II
Don DeLillo·1991 - 2Buy
White Noise
Don DeLillo·1985·DeLillo's breakthrough novel — the natural starting point for DeLillo, funnier and more accessible than Mao II. - 3Buy
Libra
Don DeLillo·1988·DeLillo's historical fiction of the Kennedy assassination — published three years before Mao II, it explores the relationship between violence, media, and historical meaning in the mode of documentary thriller.
Mao II — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Mao II part of a series?
No — Mao II is a standalone novel. DeLillo's novels share themes (terrorism, media, crowd psychology, the relationship between violence and meaning) but are entirely independent works.
What is the significance of the title Mao II?
Mao II refers to the Andy Warhol silkscreen portrait of Mao Zedong — a work in which the most powerful face of the twentieth century is reproduced in serial multiples. The title encapsulates the novel's theme: the tension between the individual face (the novelist in hiding) and the crowd face (the mass movements of the late twentieth century that have replaced individual vision with collective will).
Is Mao II difficult to read?
Mao II is more concentrated and prose-intensive than White Noise — DeLillo's sentences are often very dense and require slow reading. But it is substantially shorter than White Noise or Underworld, and its three-part structure (New York, London, Beirut) is clear. Most readers consider it more demanding than White Noise but rewarding for patient readers.
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