Underworld (novel)

Underworld

Author	Don DeLillo
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Postmodern
Publisher	Scribner
Publication date	October 3, 1997
Media type	Print (hardback and paperback)
Pages	827 (hardback first edition)
ISBN	0-684-84269-6 (hardback first edition)
OCLC	36783742
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 21
LC Class	PS3554.E4425 U53 1997
Preceded by	Mao II
Followed by	The Body Artist

Underworld is a 1997 novel by American writer Don DeLillo. The novel is centered on the efforts of Nick Shay, a waste management executive who grew up in the Bronx, to trace the history of the baseball that won the New York Giants the pennant in 1951, and encompasses numerous subplots drawn from American history in the second half of the twentieth century. Described as both postmodernist and a reaction to postmodernism,^[1] it examines themes of nuclear proliferation, waste, and the contribution of individual lives to the course of history.

A best-seller that was nominated for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, Underworld is often regarded as DeLillo's supreme achievement. In 2006, a survey of eminent authors and critics conducted by The New York Times named Underworld as the runner-up for the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years, behind only Toni Morrison's Beloved.^[2]