Don DeLillo's first three books had the feel of novels straining to be something else, of energies out of their element, tadpoles in a cocoon. If what novelists did was to round characters, set scenes and plot consequences, DeLillo was willing, but he did not seem happy doing it. He seemed happiest when careening off into a detour.
In "Americana" (1971), for instance, an executive at a TV network drops out of the rat race to drive cross country in pursuit of reality, America, himself. He finds them, but the news is not good. In "End Zone" (1972), a flakey halfback at Logos College in Texas jukes his way through a rough season. There are many references to war-games and to Vietnam. And in "Great Jones Street" (1973), a rock star, tout of rout and impresario of zonk, silences himself, retreats to a dingy tenement. His reputation catches up to him, with sinister effect. These plots, with all their insistent but familiar purport, don't count for much, even with the author. What counts is the aside, the digression, the excursus—the set-pieces of bravura craziness and inspired quackery, the rapid-fire dialogue of pointed indirection and baited indiscretion, the displays of learning twisted just enough to reveal the obsession behind it.
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