"A brilliant story about death and the fear of death," said the original jacket blurb on Don DeLillo's 1985 novel White Noise – adding that the book "is a comedy, of course." This month, Noah Baumbach's Netflix film of White Noise dazzles its way on to our screens, and we're promised "a fascinating, invigorating spectacle," a "thrillingly original" blast of cinematic lustre.

So this feels like a good time to look again at White Noise's author – and consider why Don DeLillo is one of the great novelists of our time. He published his first novel in 1971, and for half a century has been one of those writers who makes us think in a new way: read him for long enough and the world begins to look different.