End Zone

By: Don Delillo

Narrated by: Fleet Cooper

The second novel by Don DeLillo, author of White Noise (winner of the National Book Award) and The Silence.

At Logos College in West Texas, huge young men, vacuum-packed into shoulder pads and shiny helmets, play football with intense passion. During an uncharacteristic winning season, the perplexed and distracted running back Gary Harkness has periodic fits of nuclear glee; he is fueled and shielded by his fear of and fascination with nuclear conflict. Among oddly afflicted and recognizable players, the terminologies of football and nuclear war—the language of end zones—become interchangeable, and their meaning deteriorates as the collegiate year runs its course. In this triumphantly funny, deeply searching novel, Don DeLillo explores the metaphor of football as war with rich, original zeal.

Provocative character development in a football story

Provocative character development in a football story. The protagonist IS a football player who has bounced around between colleges and ends up at a small private school in Texas. Great descriptions of what IDs going through the players minds: both at game time and as they went about their student life.