The Book of the Year: The Silence by Don DeLillo

At  86 years old, Don DeLillo is considered one of the greatest living  writers in the U.S.A.  he has won several literary awards for his work,  including the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Saul  Bellow Award, and the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.   In the Silence, he considers the vexing issue of our overwhelming  dependence on technology.  What would happen if one day, as occurs in  the novel, all technology suddenly stopped:  As he puts it, "what  happens to people who live inside their phones?'  The Silence unfolds as  a haunting, wildly innovative novel that  is an introduction to post-modernism.  At the same time, the novel asks  us to take a hard look at those screens we peer into every day.  What  is reflected there?

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Location:  Private Home

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Presenter:   Brian Railsback, Ph.D., is Professor of English, former founding Dean  of The Honors College and Chair of the Faculty Senate at Western  Carolina University.  He has published considerable including John  Steinbeck, Ron Rash, and Jesmyn Ward.  He also publishes fiction,  including a novel, the Darkest Clearing.  At WCU, he has been named a  University Scholar and received the Paul A. Reid Distinguished Service  Award.  Teaching for CLE since 1995, he has served as study guide for  the CLE tour in Morocco in 2019.