Just finished a brilliant book: Don DeLillo’s most recent novel: Zero K. This is one of his best, which is a high bar. Can I call it science fiction? The critics call it literary fiction (which it is.) But here’s the story.
A billionaire, Ross Lockhart, is the major investor in a mysterious, literally underground facility that cryogenically preserves and stores bodies until medical science can cure their illnesses or defects–and perhaps, until the world finds a cure for its defects as well. One of the striking features of the book it its contrast between the spare, silent, minimalist world of the cryogenic compound, and the teaming, violent, crashing disasters taking place in the world outside it. To accent this contrast, there are screens that descend periodically in the bare halls, showing catastrophic events unfolding above. These events might be real reporting, or digital creations, or even live streaming. We don’t know.
Ross has a much younger (second) wife who is dying of cancer, which brings him and his grown son, Jeffrey, to the facility. The story is told by Jeffrey who is committed to his mother (the first wife) and resentful of the father who abandoned them when he became successful. Jeffrey is skeptical and mystified by the process and the place; indeed, by the very idea of the rich being able to buy out of death itself. And we see only what Jeffrey sees.
This is a story of life and death, father and son relations, love and grief, and transcendent human yearning, that examines life’s deepest questions with humor and sensitivity. It is astute social commentary coupled with exquisite imagination. It that science fiction? I believe it is science fiction at its best; philosophical science fiction, if you will, like Asimov or Bradbury. If you like them, you’ll like this. Of course, if you’re already a DeLillo fan, rejoice. This is pure DeLillo.
