The Silence Summary
Don Delillo

The Silence Overview

Don DeLillo’s dystopian science fiction novel, The Silence, centers on a mysterious event that causes the sudden collapse of all technological devices and infrastructure. Set almost entirely in a New York City living room on Super Bowl Sunday in the year 2022, the novel traces the thoughts and conversations of two married couples and an eccentric, young teacher as a vehicle to delve into the relationships among language, technology, and meaning in the modern world. Told from a third-person point of view, the structure of the novel slowly collapses, reflecting the breakdown of communication that ultimately leaves each character sitting in silence by the closing chapter. First and foremost a novel of big ideas, DeLillo explores the themes of technology, identity, meaning and language through the lens of a civilizational collapse.