Although they have received some acclaim in places, DeLillo's post-
Underworld novels have been often viewed by critics as "...disappointing and slight, especially when held up against his earlier, big-canvas epics", marking a shift "...away from sweeping, era-defining novels such as "White Noise," "Libra" and "Underworld." to a more "spare and oblique" style. DeLillo has commented on this shift to shorter novels, saying "“If a longer novel announces itself, I’ll write it. A novel creates its own structure and develops its own terms. I tend to follow. And I never try to stretch what I sense is a compact book.” In a March 2010 interview, it was reported that DeLillo's deliberate stylistic shift had been informed by his having recently re-read several slim but seminal European novels, including Albert Camus's
The Stranger, Peter Handke's
The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, and Max Frisch's
Man in the Holocene.
After the publication and extensive publicity drive for
Underworld, DeLillo once again retreated from the spotlight to write his twelfth novel, surfacing with
The Body Artist in 2001. The novel contained may established DeLillo preoccupations, particularly its interest in performance art and domestic privacies in relation to the wider scope of events. However, the slight and brief novella was very different in style and tone to the epic history of
Underworld, and met with a mixed critical reception.
DeLillo followed
The Body Artist with 2003's
Cosmopolis, a modern re-interpretation of James Joyce's
Ulysses transposed to New York around the time of the collapse of the dot-com bubble in the year 2000. This novel was met at the time with a largely negative reception from critics, with several high profile critics and novelists-notably John Updike-voicing their objections to the novel's style and tone. However, subsequently critical opinions have been revised, the novel latterly being seen as prescient for its views on the flaws and weaknesses of the international financial system and cybercapital.
DeLillo's papers were acquired in 2004 by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
DeLillo returned with what would turn out to be his final novel of the decade with
Falling Man in May, 2007. The novel concerned the impact on one family of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, "...an intimate story which is encompassed by a global event." According to a 2007 interview in
Die Zeit, DeLillo claims that originally he "...didn't ever want to write a novel about 9/11." and "...had an idea for a different book" which he had "been working on for half a year" in 2004 when he came up with an idea for the novel, beginning work on the novel following the re-election of George W. Bush that November. Although highly anticipated and eagerly awaited by critics, who felt that DeLillo was one of the contemporary writers best equipped to tackle with the events of 9/11 in novelistic form, the novel met once again with a mixed critical reception and garnered no major literary awards or nominations. DeLillo, however, remainsed unconcerned by this relative lack of critical acclaim, remarking in 2010 "In the 1970s, when I started writing novels, I was a figure in the margins, and that’s where I belonged. If I’m headed back that way, that’s fine with me, because that’s always where I felt I belonged. Things changed for me in the 1980s and 1990s, but I’ve always preferred to be somewhere in the corner of a room, observing.”
On April 25, 2009 DeLillo received another significant literary award, the 2009 Common Wealth Award for Literature, given by PNC Bank of Delaware.
On June 9, 2009 it was announced that DeLillo's next novel, his fifteenth, had been completed and was set for publication. Titled
Point Omega, the brief plot description released revealed that the new short novel concerns: "A young filmmaker [who] visits the desert home of a secret war advisor in the hopes of making a documentary. The situation is complicated by the arrival of the older man's daughter, and the narrative takes a dark turn." The first confirmed extract from
Point Omega was made available on the Simon and Schuster website on December 10, 2009.
On July 24, 2009, Entertainment Weekly announced:
Director David Cronenberg (A History of Violence, Naked Lunch) will write a screenplay adaptation of Don DeLillo's 2003 novel Cosmopolis, with "a view to eventually direct,"
This would be the first direct adaptation for the screen of a DeLillo novel, although both
Libra and
Underworld have previously been optioned for screen treatments and DeLillo himself has written an original screenplay for the film
Game 6. On January 13, 2010, The Canadian Press revealed the latest update on the adaptation:
Cronenberg...said he's finished writing the big-screen adaptation of Don DeLillo's provocative 2003 novel "Cosmopolis."
"Everyone's happy with the script," he said, noting they haven't cast it yet.
"It's a project I'm very fond of," added Cronenberg. "It's a terrific book and plans are in the works to make that movie.
On November 30, 2009, DeLillo published a new original short story in the
New Yorker magazine, his first since "Still Life" in 2007 prior to the release of
Falling Man. The new story is called "Midnight in Doestoevsky" and it is a standalone short story (not a part of DeLillo's forthcoming novel
Point Omega as seen in the advance copies).
DeLillo ended the decade by making an unexpected appearance at a PEN event on the steps of the New York City Public Library, 5th Ave and 42nd St in support of Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced to eleven years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power" on December 31, 2009.