Review: End Zone

End Zone
by Don DeLillo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

End Zone / 0-14-008568-8

In this incredible allegory between football, war, and destruction, "End Zone" wonderfully fleshes out the classic Delillo obsession with mass death and world devastation. His characters wear shirts with mushroom clouds festooned on the front, they brood over board games that focus around apocalypse scenarios, and they meditate in the desert on the nature of death, the meaninglessness of life, and pain of existence. The football analogy is apt and carefully exploited, but there is much more at work here - even if you don't like, understand, or follow football, the message is most definitely *not* lost.

Like "White Noise", "End Zone" centers around the inner workings of an isolated college community. Students stress over weight, football skill, philosophy, term papers, and their futures, but this normal stress takes on a heightened, penultimate status in Delillo's fevered pitch. Like "White Noise", "End Zone" invites us to examine our lives for deeper meaning, but the meaning we find we may not like.

~ Ana Mardoll

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