The Names

Set against the backdrop of a lush and exotic Greece, "The Names" is considered the book which began to drive "sharply upward the size of his readership" ( "Los Angeles Times Book Review" ). Among the cast of DeLillo's bizarre yet fully realized characters in "The Names" are Kathryn, the narrator's estranged wife; their son, the six-year-old novelist; Owen, the scientist; and the neurotic narrator obsessed with his own neuroses. A thriller, a mystery, and still a moving examination of family, loss, and the amorphous and magical potential of language itself, "The Names" stands with any of DeLillo's more recent and highly acclaimed works.