The Silence

Overview

Don DeLillo’s The Silence is a short novel first published by Scribner on October 20, 2020. At about 128 pages, it is a spare, speculative work about technological collapse, public life, and the fragility of the stories people use to make sense of the world. The novel is set in 2022, on the night of the Super Bowl, and opens with an epigraph attributed to Albert Einstein: the familiar warning that a third world war might be fought with advanced weapons, while a fourth would be fought with sticks and stones. The quotation frames the book with the possibility that modern civilization could destroy itself—and that whatever follows might begin again from almost nothing.

Plot and themes

Jim Kripps and his wife, Tessa Berens, are flying from Paris toward their home in Newark when their passenger plane suffers an emergency and crash-lands. Afterward, they join several other people in a Manhattan apartment. The group’s evening is initially organized around the Super Bowl and ordinary conversation. Then screens and digital systems fail on a vast scale, cutting the apartment’s occupants off from the familiar channels through which they receive information and maintain contact with the outside world. The novel brings five central characters together in this enclosed setting, where a global technological breakdown becomes less a puzzle to solve than a condition they must confront. The emergency landing and the blackout are the principal events; much of the book consists of talk, conjecture, recollection, and pauses rather than conventional action.

The outage unsettles more than convenience. In a society accustomed to finding news, work, entertainment, and social connection through electronic devices, the sudden loss of those systems raises questions about dependence and identity: how do people know what is happening, and how do they know who they are, when the screens go dark? The characters’ conversations range across subjects including a telescope in north-central Chile, bourbon, and Einstein’s 1912 manuscript on relativity. Their leaps between topics suggest both the reach of modern knowledge and the impulse to find a pattern in a crisis that resists explanation. Silence in the novel is therefore technological and psychological: devices fall quiet, public life becomes inaccessible, and speech continues without necessarily producing understanding. DeLillo connects these immediate disruptions to fears of war, civilizational collapse, and the limits of language.

Context and place in DeLillo’s work

The book revisits concerns that run through DeLillo’s fiction: the power of media to shape experience, the vulnerability beneath technological confidence, and the way collective events influence private consciousness. Its enclosed apartment, emergency landing, scientific manuscript, and televised football game also recall recurring motifs in his earlier work. The Super Bowl is particularly characteristic of his interest in sports as a shared American spectacle, one that can reveal how people imagine community and belonging. Although DeLillo began writing The Silence before COVID-19 existed, its fictional world remembers a virus that emptied streets. That detail gave the novel’s portrayal of disrupted routines and large-scale uncertainty an especially immediate resonance upon its publication in 2020.

Often described as DeLillo’s eighteenth novel, The Silence is among his most compressed late works. Rather than deliver a technically detailed account of the catastrophe or a conventional resolution, it uses dialogue and a near-theatrical concentration on a few people to make uncertainty itself the subject. Its austerity can frustrate readers looking for a fuller plot, but it also sharpens the book’s questions about what remains when familiar systems of communication disappear. The novel’s lasting interest lies in this concentrated late-career restatement of DeLillo’s central preoccupations: media, language, technology, and the precarious terms on which people share a reality.

About the Author

Don DeLillo

Early life and education

Don DeLillo was born in the Bronx, New York City, on November 20, 1936, and grew up in an Italian American family. He attended Fordham University, graduating in 1958 with a bachelor’s degree in communications arts. After college, he worked as an advertising copywriter. The discipline of advertising—its brief, persuasive language and its close attention to public images—provides useful context for his later fascination with slogans, mass communication, consumer culture, and the ways language can influence perception. He began writing fiction while working in advertising and eventually made literature his principal career.

Works and career

DeLillo’s first novel, Americana, appeared in 1971. His early books include End Zone (1972), Great Jones Street (1973), Ratner’s Star (1976), Players (1977), and Running Dog (1978). Across these works he developed a distinctive approach to contemporary life: his characters inhabit a world shaped by media, technology, commerce, and political power, yet often struggle to distinguish direct experience from the public images and language surrounding them.

The Names (1982) explored language, signs, and international experience. His eighth novel, White Noise (1985), brought together consumer culture, environmental danger, media spectacle, and fear of death, combining dark humor with philosophical inquiry. It won the National Book Award. Libra (1988), a novel engaging with the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the surrounding culture of conspiracy, was a National Book Award finalist and received the first Irish Times International Fiction Prize. Mao II (1991) examined writers, terrorism, and mass media. The sweeping Underworld (1997), which ranges across the second half of twentieth-century America, is widely regarded as one of his major achievements and an important work of contemporary American fiction. It was a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist. Later novels include The Body Artist (2001), Cosmopolis (2003), Falling Man (2007), Point Omega (2010), Zero K (2016), and The Silence (2020). In addition to novels, DeLillo has written short stories, plays, screenplays, and essays. His story collection The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories was published in 2011.

Reputation

DeLillo is frequently associated with postmodernism, though the range and evolution of his work resist an easy classification. Across several decades, he has returned to television and digital media, nuclear conflict, sports, language, historical memory, and collective fear. His fiction asks how such forces shape private consciousness and alter the way people understand reality. The National Book Award for White Noise, the recognition given to Libra, and the major award nominations for Underworld mark a career of sustained literary distinction. His reputation rests on a body of work noted for its compressed, rhythmic prose, its alertness to popular culture, and its examination of anxiety in modern society. DeLillo, born in 1936, is living; his influence comes from the cumulative force of novels that have helped define American writing about media, technology, and contemporary history.

StoryFlow

The Flight’s Progress

This thread follows Jim Kripps and Tessa Berens from the uneasy routine of their return flight into the sudden emergency that breaks it.

The Apartment’s First Blackout

This flow traces how an ordinary Super Bowl gathering becomes the first local encounter with a world whose communications and devices have failed.

From Local Failure to World War

This thread follows the characters’ uncertain understanding of a household blackout as Martin’s talk expands it into a global conflict.

Knowledge Graph

Jim Kripps Tessa Berens Diane Lucas Max Stenner Martin Dekker

Knowledge Graph

Storylines

During the return flight from Paris

The Flight Home

On the long flight home, [Jim Kripps](entity:character-recall-character-jim-kripps-47c09a385ed3) reclines but cannot sleep. He reads the changing figures on the cabin screen aloud—altitude, speed, temperature, time to destination—as if giving the numbers voice might keep them from vanishing into the drone of the aircraft.

During the early part of the return flight

The Notebook Record

[Tessa Berens](entity:character-recall-character-tessa-berens-d9b7c55e48cb) writes in her small notebook while she and Jim talk about food, pronunciation, and the facts that come back from memory. Jim’s efforts to recall the first name of Fahrenheit turn a stray bit of knowledge into a private contest between them.

Later during the return flight

The Holiday Recalled

Their talk drifts to the trip’s impressions: the rainy day, long walks, meals, and places they visited. Tessa wants the notebook to preserve precise details for a future self; Jim recognizes that the flight’s repetitive chatter and their recollections may fade as soon as they land.

Super Bowl Sunday, 2022

Super Bowl Sunday

At home, [Diane Lucas](entity:character-recall-character-diane-lucas-bc45d7fd32fe) and [Max Stenner](entity:character-recall-character-max-stenner-807a446bbade) wait for the game with [Martin Dekker](entity:character-recall-character-martin-dekker-6a32df6466cc), Diane’s former student. The room is arranged around the television, with two empty chairs held for friends who are expected to join them.

Before kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday

The Sacred Bet

Max explains that he keeps his attention divided between the point spread and the actual wager. Diane says she has never learned how much money he has lost over their thirty-seven years together, and jokes that he guards the amount as sacred territory.

Before kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday

Martin and the World Cup

Conversation turns to the World Cup, which Martin says once held him completely in its grip. Max dismisses soccer as a sport that represses the ordinary impulse to grab the ball, while Martin recalls the spectacle of whole countries watching together.

As the game begins

The Screens Go Blank

The television image breaks into pulsing geometric patterns and then disappears. The remote, phones, landline, and computer all fail as well, leaving Diane, Max, and Martin without the ordinary means of receiving information or reaching anyone.

During the same disruption

The Emergency Landing

As the technological collapse spreads, Jim and Tessa’s aircraft jolts violently. The plane comes down hard, skids, and leaves passengers injured and disoriented; Jim suffers a cut to his forehead, while Tessa has no clear memory of being afraid.

After the emergency landing

A Van Through the Dark

Passengers are driven away from the crash site in a van. They piece together what happened—impact, fire, and a hard landing—while Jim tries to recover his own memories and Tessa reminds the group that they are still alive.

During the ride from the crash site

The Runner in the Street

The van passes a lone woman jogging through a cold, nearly empty street. The driver slows to match her pace and ignores the passengers’ questions, making the runner’s steady movement feel like an unsettling remnant of ordinary life.

Soon after the screens fail

Martin’s Strange Explanation

Martin wonders aloud whether the outage is an act of algorithmic control and imagines that people in China may still be watching the game. Diane answers that the strange sounds from the dead screen seem extraterrestrial, while Max insists that the military flyover is an obsolete ritual.

While Max is away questioning neighbors

Einstein’s Manuscript

Left together, Diane asks Martin about [Einstein’s 1912 Manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity](entity:object-recall-object-einstein-s-1912-manusc-916eea67dbd9). Martin recalls its crossed-out phrases, equations, handwriting, and physical pages with an intensity that briefly makes their conversation feel intimate and charged.

After the television and phones fail

Max Questions the Neighbors

Max leaves the apartment and knocks on doors in the building. He finds neighbors who have also seen the outage, but no one can offer a convincing explanation; possible technical failure and a sunspot are among the guesses.

After Max returns from the hallway

The Neighborly Silence

Max reports that the residents mostly exchanged nods and fragments of speculation. Diane asks whether the elevator works and whether anyone knows what is happening, but the building’s new, awkward sense of neighborliness supplies no answers.

Later that evening

The Radiant Name

As Max stares at the empty television, Diane recalls the religious art they saw in [Rome](entity:location-recall-location-f3877a21016f) and asks Martin about Jesus of Nazareth. Martin calls him the radiant name and recalls Einstein’s words about being enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.

Later that evening

Max’s Invisible Broadcast

Max begins narrating an imagined football game to the blank screen, shifting between play-by-play, sideline reporting, and advertisements. His performance grows exuberant and strange, giving him a new voice while the actual game and its broadcast remain inaccessible.

During Max’s improvised broadcast

Martin’s Confession

Martin quietly tells Diane that he is taking medication and describes possible side effects. He then wonders whether the face in a mirror is truly his and whether other people see the same self he sees, turning the outage into an opening for a more personal disorientation.

After the crash, at a neighborhood clinic

The Clinic Queue

Jim and Tessa wait in a crowded clinic for someone to examine Jim’s head. Before they reach the intake worker, they slip away from the line and have sex in a cramped restroom, an impulsive act that briefly affirms their closeness amid the confusion.

At the clinic, after the restroom

The Functionary’s Warning

The clinic’s intake worker describes other people’s disasters—stranded trains, stalled elevators, and abandoned buildings—and admits she has no authority to explain the larger crisis. When the lights go out, she whispers fragments of her life and fears that the advanced systems surrounding her have made everyone vulnerable.

After Jim receives treatment

The Walk to Friends

A clinic worker sends Jim to have his wound cleaned and bandaged, and the couple leave on foot. In the dark streets they pass a man with a battered cart and a disabled traffic signal, then keep walking toward their friends’ home.

Late evening, after the streets darken

The Guests Arrive

Jim and Tessa reach Diane and Max’s apartment and recount the crash and the emptied streets. Diane initially mistakes their return from [Paris](entity:location-recall-location-657453741ed3) for a journey from [Rome](entity:location-recall-location-f3877a21016f), then turns to the mundane question of what they ate on the plane; Tessa remembers the spinach-and-cheese tortellini.

Late evening

Dinner by Candlelight

With the stove and refrigerator dead and the apartment cooling, Diane and Martin bring out food prepared earlier by Max. Tessa counts backward by sevens in changing languages while the five sit in candlelight, eat, and remain together without deciding what they will do next.

After midnight

The War Without Missiles

The scale of the breakdown widens in the characters’ talk: nuclear launch codes are said to be compromised, while cyberattacks, biological weapons, failing power grids, and disordered perception take the place of conventional warfare. Martin calls the unfolding catastrophe [World War III](entity:event-recall-event-world-war-iii-9b2689217082).

After midnight, during the growing crisis

Martin as Einstein

Martin speaks in an adopted Einstein-like accent, listing bioweapons and scientific ideas before moving into German and recalling Einstein’s family. Diane cannot tell whether she is hearing revelation, performance, or a mind losing its balance, and she chooses not to interrupt.

After midnight

Max Leaves the Apartment

Max abruptly declares that he is done and leaves, calling the day his expiration date. His departure silences Martin for a moment and leaves Diane with the blank screen and the question of whether she should keep waiting for the old world to return.

After Max leaves

Tessa’s What If

Tessa wonders whether their apparent reality is a fantasy being made real, or whether the world is being rearranged around them. She connects the present collapse to storms, fires, plagues, and other disasters that had already made ordinary life seem precarious.

Later in the night

The Empty Bedroom

Exhausted, Jim asks Diane whether he and Tessa may use the bedroom for a short sleep. Diane watches them go and tries to remember whether she made the bed, while Martin remains in the living room speaking about drones and a language understood only by machines.

While Jim and Tessa rest

The Failed Advance

Alone with Martin, Diane recognizes that she wants a more intimate response from him. She tells him he knows what they want, but when he undresses and she asks him to speak German, he instead recites a definition of capitalism; she signals him to dress, and the possible encounter ends without sex.

During the night, after leaving

Max in the Crowd

Max moves through crowded streets where people push, argue, and sometimes fight. He briefly forgets the names of his daughters, then decides to return home through the mass of strangers, measuring the journey against memories of counting stairs as a child.

Later in the night, as the company regathers

The Lost Words Return

Back in the apartment, Tessa’s missing shoes become a small joke, and Martin supplies the remembered name of [Cerro-Pachón Ridge](entity:location-recall-location-cd8e8dcfde9d) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. The recovered reference briefly restores a shared thread of memory amid the larger failure to understand what is happening.

Deep into the night

The Onward Moments

Martin speaks about the need to keep reminding themselves that they are alive and wonders whether he has been waiting all his life for a moment like this. He considers a free death, then questions whether the thought is serious or merely a plea for attention.

Near the end of the night

The Travelers Remember

The others take turns retracing the day in speech. Jim relives the turbulence and crash, Max recounts climbing eight flights of stairs, and Tessa describes the notebooks in which she has stored fragments of daily life; each account becomes an attempt to recover experience before it disappears.

Near the end of the night

Diane’s Final Reflection

Diane reflects on teaching, the students who listened to her, the loss of wonder, and her wish to return to the classroom and explain physics. She ends her long meditation by quoting a line from Finnegans Wake and telling herself to stop talking.

At the novel’s ending

Martin’s Sticks and Stones

Martin returns to Einstein, the manuscript, and the possibility that the crisis is [World War III](entity:event-recall-event-world-war-iii-9b2689217082). He recalls the warning that [World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones](entity:expression-recall-expression-world-war-iv-will-b41a5ca00b68), then imagines walking silently with Einstein across Princeton.

The final moments

The Blank Screen Remains

Martin says the streets are empty without looking outside. He reflects that the world is everything and the individual nothing, while Max sits with his hands behind his neck and stares into the television’s blank screen.