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The 100 best novels: No 98 – Underworld by Don DeLillo (1997)

A writer of 'frightening perception', Don DeLillo guides the reader in an epic journey through America's history and popular culture

Robert McCrum

Mon 3 Aug 2015 05.45 BST

As this series approaches the present, the process of making a final selection from great contemporary fiction becomes progressively more contentious. In the impossible choice between Thomas Pynchon, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy, Joan Didion, Don DeLillo, Michael Ondaatje, Robert Stone and Paul Auster, I have opted for DeLillo's 11th novel.