Mao II, published in 1991, is Don DeLillo's tenth novel. It was the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1992. The title is derived from a series of Andy Warhol silkscreen prints depicting Mao Zedong. This book was dedicated to DeLillo's editor, Gordon Lish. A reclusive novelist named Bill Gray works endlessly on a novel he chooses not to finish. He has chosen a lifestyle completely secluded from life to try to keep writing pure. He, along with his assistant Scott, believe that something is lost once a mass audience reads the work. Scott would prefer Bill didn't publish the book for fear that... the mass-production of the work will destroy the "real" Bill. Bill has a dalliance with Scott's partner Karen Janney, a former member of the Unification Church who is married to Kim Jo Pak in a Unification Church Blessing ceremony in the prologue of the book. Bill, who lives as a complete recluse, accedes to be photographed by a New York photographer named Brita who is documenting writers.
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| Author: | Don DeLillo |
| Genre: | Novel, Fiction, Speculative fiction |
| Year published: | 1991 |
| Number of editions: | 9 |