The Body Artist begins with normality: breakfast between a married couple, Lauren and Rey, in their ramshackle rented house on the New England coast. Recording their delicate, intimate, half-complete thoughts and words, Don DeLillo proves himself a stunningly unsentimental observer of our idiosyncratic relationships. But after breakfast, Rey makes a decision that leaves Lauren utterly alone, or seems to.
As Lauren, the body artist of the title, becomes strangely detached from herself and the temporal world, the novel becomes an exploration of a highly abnormal grieving process; a fascinating exposé of 'who we are when we are not rehearsing who we are'; and a rarefied study of trauma and creativity, absence and presence, isolation and communion. Don DeLillo is the acclaimed author of bestselling novels and plays. His work includes White Noise, Libra, The Body Artist and Underworld. He has won the National Book Award, the Jerusalem Prize and the Irish Times International Fiction Prize. A sad, beautiful novel, The Body Artist is an elliptical meditation on the mysteries of love, life and time.
