An Interview with Don DeLillo

Abstract

Don DeLillo in person seems utterly different from the image of himself he has allowed to circulate in photographs. Though he is slim, modest, and mild, the photograph on the back cover of his novel, Mao Two, makes him appear large, hard, imperious and slightly menacing. Neutral or anonymous are probably the correct adjectives to describe him: he has the neutrality of the person who prefers the position of obser'>er to that of protagonist and as a consequence equips himself by choosing the only suitable means for the task, the ability to disappear , to camouflage himself ' to become one among many. Therefore, he is always different, depending on what is required. His body and even his voice seem not to leave a trace; they tend to be forgettable, to give themselves over to being reabsorbed into the fullness from whence they came. As I will come to understand in the course of the interview, that which seems to resemble a handicap is rather a game of transformation. We can practice the game, if we apply ourselves, by projecting from ourselves a desired image, according to our pleasure: An exercise we can define as one of power relations in which the object seems to be that of distancing the possible interlocutors from oneself and of conducting the game of

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