Preview of Underworld Summary:

Examining DeLillo's life for answers to questions raised by Underworld is enticing, because the novel offers the first extended treatment of the Bronx of the author's childhood. With the exception of a few early short stories, DeLillo has rarely revisited this literary landscape. As if to emphasize the connections between the author and his book, in the fall of 1997 DeLillo allowed himself to be photographed for Vanity Fair at a Bronx lot where he played as a youth.

He also visited his boyhood home with journalist David Remnick, an incident that was reported in a profile that Remnick wrote for The New Yorker (September 1997). And since DeLillo is reticent about revealing autobiographical details, it is tempting to seek them in Part Six of the novel, which takes place in 1951 and 1952, or in the 1951 ballgame of the Prologue. Based on references in the text, it seems that both Cotter...