“White Noise: A comic novel (1985) by the US writer Don DeLillo (b. 1936), centering on an ‘airborne toxic event’ and the manufacture of an experimental drug to cure the fear of death. White noise is the term for either electronic signals or sound in which all frequencies are present at equal intensity, and thus have no meaning. It is also used to mean a background noise of which one is generally unaware until it changes or stops.”
Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.