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Underworld

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Underworld opens with a legendary 1951 baseball game where the Shot Heard Round the World intersects with news of the Soviet Union’s first hydrogen bomb test. The baseball, worn and passed between characters, threads through decades of American historyβ€”the Cold War, Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam protestsβ€”revealing the lives of Nick Shay, Klara Sax, and others. This sweeping narrative captures the intimate and complex histories of individuals shaped by the nation’s past.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$6000

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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers interested in complex historical fiction that blends personal stories with significant American events across the mid-20th century.

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A gloriously fused history of the past 50 years that offers a key to understanding American culture, "Underworld" moves through the nation's diverse landscapes, analyzing the mesmerizing interplay between two central characters, and "(offering) us another history of ourselves, the unofficial underground moments" (Michael Ondaatje). A National Book Award Finalist.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Finalist for the National Book Award

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

Winner of the Howell's Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

"A great American novel" (San Francisco Chronicle) that spans five decades of American history, following the intimate lives of the men and women who lived through them.

It begins with a moment of legend: the 1951 baseball game between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers in which the winning homerun known as the Shot Heard Round the World coincides with news of the Soviet Union's first hydrogen bomb test.

The baseball itself, scuffed and passed from hand to hand, becomes the thread that weaves an astonishing tapestry that spans the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam protests, and beyond, telling the story of Nick Shay, Klara Sax, and the hidden histories of a nation both haunted and illuminated by its past.

Sweeping yet intimate, Underworld is an astonishing story of men and women brought together and torn apart against the backdrop of half a century of American history.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780684848150

Publisher: Prentice Hall (a Pearson Education company)

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 27 July 1998

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Prentice Hall & IBD

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 135.0mm

Height: 204.0mm

Weight: 830g

Pages: 848

About the Author

Don DeLillo is the author of seventeen novels including Underworld, Zero K, Libra, and White Noise, and the story collection The Angel Esmeralda, a finalist for the Story Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He has also written plays and essays. He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, the Jerusalem Prize for his complete body of work, the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, in 2025, the Academy's Gold Medal for Fiction. DeLillo has been awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction and the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

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