Yet what might be more significant for this factor is what DeLillo did next. Since Underworld was published 25 years ago when the author was 61 – a career summation if ever there was – DeLillo has kept on going. Since then, he has published a further six novels and a collection of stories. These novels have been different from what came before: shorter, mostly, and tighter in focus. The Body Artist (2001), one of the best, is a strange sort of ghost story, with sentences perhaps unmatched in pure stylistic beauty throughout DeLillo's oeuvre.
