White Noise

Chairman of the department of Hitler studies at a Midwestern college, Jack Gladney is accidently exposed to a cloud of noxious chemicals, part of a world of the future that is doomed because of misused technology, artifical products and foods, and overpopulation. PW appreciated DeLillo's ""bleak, ironic'' vision, calling it ``not so much a tragic view of history as a macabre one.'' January