Cover of End Zone

End Zone

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 some of the 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 novel, Don DeLillo explores the the borders of organized violence.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 200 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked End Zone? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked End Zone. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Sportswriter Shares fiction, literary fiction, literature
  2. The Collected Stories Shares fiction
  3. The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. Shares fiction, sports, literary fiction
  4. Reality Isn't What It Used to Be Shares postmodernism

“People who read End Zone tend to reach for these next.”

  1. City Life
  2. The Oxford Book of American Short Stories
  3. The Ultimate Good Luck
  4. Plowing the Dark

“If you want more of the same (literary fiction about sports), start with these.”

  1. The Rider
  2. Golf in the Kingdom
  3. Dead Solid Perfect
  4. Tough to Tackle

“If it was the literature that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Purity
  2. Housekeeping
  3. Freedom
  4. Infinite Jest

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Do You Love Football?!: Winning with Heart, Passion, and Not Much Sleep
  2. Monster of the Midway: Bronko Nagurski, the 1943 Chicago Bears, and the Greatest Comeback Ever
  3. Why Football Matters: My Education in the Game
  4. Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare