Let’s be real — every character is Don DeLillo’s head on somebody else’s body. Speaking in the same abstract, existentially distracted stream of consciousness. Grammatically unmoored half-sentences recording the silently gravitational minutia of place and time. Seguing unannounced into deep psychic spectres of American life.
Even children. Yes, I would like to play with the ball. It glistens red and the tactile sense of the grooves under your fingers, satisfying yield to control. The textured rubber, submitting minutely, pliant. The industrial process that produces such an instrument. Every one alike, thousands of them identical in the hands of actual, believable children like me. The American ball industry, always churning. I am conscious my complicity in its oscillations.
I mean, I love this man, but just have to point this out.