The Body Artist begins with normality: breakfast between a married couple,
Lauren and Rey, in their ramshackle rented house on the New England coast.
Recording their delicate, intimate, half-complete thoughts and words,
DeLillo proves himself a stunningly unsentimental observer of our
idiosyncratic relationships. But after breakfast, Rey makes a decision that
leaves Lauren utterly alone, or seems to. As Lauren, the body artist of the
title, becomes strangely detached from herself and the temporal world, the
novel becomes an exploration of a highly abnormal grieving process; a
fascinating expose of 'who we are when we are not rehearsing who we are';
and a rarefied study of trauma and creativity, absence and presence,
isolation and communion.