Book Review: "The Angel Esmeralda" by Don DeLillo

The Angel Esmeralda (2011)  

Don DeLillo (1936-)

211 pages

[Standing on the highway overpass] I watched and listened, unaware of passing time, thinking of the order and discipline of the traffic, taken for granted, drivers maintaining a distance, fallible men and women, cars ahead, behind, to the sides, night driving, thoughts drifting. Why weren’t there accidents every few seconds on this one stretch of highway, even before morning rush? This is what I thought from my position on the bridge, the surging noise and sheer speed, the proximity of vehicles, the fundamental differences among drivers, sex, age, language, temperament, personal history … it seemed a wonder to me that they moved safely toward the mystery of their destinations.

from the story Hammer and Sickle

“[It] seemed a wonder to me that they moved safely toward the mystery of their destinations.” This idea lies at the heart of each of the nine short stories of this collection by Don DeLillo. Characters look out in wonder at the people around them --- both friends and strangers --- never quite able to come to an understanding of the lives they see, though feeling at times a deep connection lying just beyond comprehension. These same characters gaze also inward, at their own behaviors and attitudes, and find themselves driven by impulses whose origins they can only dimly fathom.

But the stories are not simple meditations on existence. DeLillo places each of his characters into a charged situation that challenges the order of the lives they have created for themselves, and then allows us to watch as they struggle to make sense of it. In the title story a nun in New York City who helps the poor finds herself joining them in contemplating the significance of a vision on a street corner that appears in the wake of a tragedy. In another story two friends walk the streets of their small university town inventing stories about the people they see, until one day they find themselves drawn deeply to an old man they repeatedly encounter and they begin to question the goal of their game. In a third a woman meets a stranger at an art exhibit and through an apathetic indifference allows him to drift into her life, until suddenly she finds things have gone farther than she had realized. In each of these stories the slow paced action on the surface contrasts with the increasing tumult and uncertainty of the characters thoughts as DeLillo forces them out of their routine, mindless existence and onto unexpected paths.

The stories are best read slowly, savoring DeLillo’s deliberate construction and wonderful phrasing. I found the staccato rhythms of his character’s thoughts and the questions that suddenly bubble up into their consciousness about their lives to be authentic representations of the way we pass through our world.

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