White Noise is a 1985 novel by Don DeLillo. It describes a period of crisis in the life of Jack Gladney, an American professor, working at a pleasant college campus in the small town of Blacksmith.

The first part of the book describes Jack’s daily life, his work as a leading exponent of Hitler studies, and his home life with his wife, and array of children and stepchildren.

All trouble seems to happen far from the College-on-the-Hill, disasters watched on television, terrible histories studied in rooms beside leafy quadrangles – until an accident at a nearby railway depot involving a cloud of toxic gas, changes Jack’s perspective.

White Noise is about the numerous problems we face in looking at things. At one extreme, there’s low brow news media, and prescient scenes showing rumour and disinformation accompanying the gas cloud crisis. Meanwhile, at the academic end of the scale, we’re asked how a subject like Hitler can be meaningfully studied in a tranquil college environment. An inability to understand the world extends from National Enquirer readers to academics.

In trying to review this book I kept coming back to the idea of ‘the most photographed barn in America’ which is supposed to stand picturesquely in the countryside near The College-on-the-Hill. Jack Gladney and one of his colleagues, comment on the fact that it’s impossible to see this barn for what it is, framed now as America’s most photographed. A book review is similar. White Noise might not be the most reviewed book in America, but it is relatively famous, establishing Don DeLillo’s reputation as a successful writer, winning a place on Time Magazine’s list of best modern novels. A book is tricky to review when it kind of pulls the rug out from under your efforts – suggesting that the more a book is reviewed the less likely we are to really see it – the weight of its reputation changing how we react.

Is this review pointless? I’m in two minds. Considering White Noise was written in 1985, the portrayal of misinformation spreading during the gas cloud crisis did feel forward looking. But the book was for me unnecessarily negative in suggesting that there was no reliable information anywhere. This was misleading in itself. We could include books of biting satire like White Noise in the misinformation category, since satire involves exaggeration, and exaggeration means distortion. Giving in to the idea that reliable information does not exist means accepting truth as whatever gets the most traction on the internet. Still, I don’t want to be negative myself. I did find White Noise an interesting book. It is certainly worth reading as an expression of concerns about trust in information – but I do think it could be seen as an illustration of the problem, as well as a commentary on it.