Among other things, White Noise is about Jack Gladney: a professor specializing in Hitler studies who can’t speak German.
He attempts to learn the language while keeping his horrible secret from his colleagues, simultaneously navigating family life in a culture of post-modern consumerism. Finally, a giant black cloud – the result of an industrial accident – fills the sky. Everyone is ordered to evacuate the city, and Jack finds himself a refugee in his own country.
The official covers tend towards the simple side, but not in a bad way. I just replaced my beat-up paperback with the pretty black and white trade paperback version (centre, below) which is probably my favourite cover.
It’s an older novel – first published in 1985 – and the foreign covers I found definitely have a whiff of the ’90s about them. From left to right, top to bottom: German edition, Swedish edition, Polish edition.
And as per usual, the redesigns blow everything out of the water.
Left to right, top to bottom: covers from Justin Renteria, HBH Design, and Justin Duel James.
Cover to Cover is a weekly project comparing and critiquing the various covers of popular novels, published every Wednesday. Find more posts in this series here.
Bayrock, Bookrock 