In late April, DeLillo confirmed that he is working on a new novel (though, seeing as it's now September, perhaps he's already finished it). Not only am I very excited to learn this news, but I'm also not surprised in the least about the book's purported subject matter: images, disasters, footage, all classic DeLillo themes. Below I have reproduced the section of the interview where he talks about this upcoming novel:
It is because when I write, I need to see what is happening. Even when it is just two guys in a room, writing dialogues is not enough. I need to visualize the scene, where they are, how they sit, what they wear, etc. I had never given much thought about it, it came naturally, but recently I became aware of that while working on my upcoming novel, in which the character spends a lot of time watching file footage on a wide screen, images of a disaster. I had no problem describing the process, that is to say to rely on a visualization process. I am not comfortable with abstract writing, stories that look like essays: you have to see, I need to see.
(See the full interview HERE.)
The great thing about this quote is how DeLillo manages to bury a golden nugget of information within a great insight into his writing process. One day, I hope to put together insights like these, of which there are many, and further develop an interpretive approach that I have tentatively been calling "cross-media theory."
Still, no one is blind to the fact that DeLillo is getting up there in his years, and he probably doesn't have much time left for writing (though, I'm sure he has no shortage of ideas). Anyway, this realization reminded me of a moment near the end of the interview that he gave with Adam Begley in 1993. Asked about his future plans, DeLillo confessed:
[...] I'm aware of the fact that time is limited. Every new novel stretches the term of the contract--let me live long enough to do one more book. How many books do we get? How much good work?
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