Zero K by Don DeLillo

"Tableau vivant, I thought, except that the actors were dead and their costumes were super-insulated plastic tubes."

I'm not really sure that a depressing book about dying was a good way to spend my birthday book voucher. Perhaps it was indicative of the drama that surrounds the gift giver, or perhaps I'm just jet-lagged still and sprouting nonsense.
I found it rather difficult to immerse myself in the novel, due in part , no doubt, to the subject matter.

Ross Lockhart, an ageing billionaire, has put in a call to his estranged son Jeffrey to visit the compound of his new investment. A place where the sick leave behind their ailing bodies pending future cures. A strange labyrinth of empty offices and endless questions.

Jeffrey's journey into his own thoughts within the strange surrounds is complex as he learns he is to accompany his father to bid farewell to his father's love, Artis. Internal monologues haunt his musing wanderings. His father has more news and there is much to contemplate here.


Perhaps I would have enjoyed this more had I not been reading it on planes and between goopti transfers - a strange way to make my way around Europe. Jeff's conflict is reminiscent of the fog I currently find myself in.


4 out of 5 scary compounds have uncertain ends.