And this takes us to the last of the attributes that help to give DeLillo's work its significance. His willingness to keep going is exemplified by both Underworld (1997) and what came after it. By the mid-1990s, DeLillo's reputation was secure, but he was ambitious to write the sort of book nobody thought him inclined to write, or indeed capable of: a monumental social history that foregrounded character as much as event.
