Navigating the Uncanny Spaces: Spatial Relations in Don DeLillo’s Falling Man

Following the twentieth-century's spatial turn in literary and cultural studies, this paper examines spaces and spatiality in Don DeLillo's novel Falling Man, a seminal fictional response to the most traumatic (spatial) event in the USA at the turn of the century.Starting from Robert T. Tally Jr.'s thesis that authors are cartographers, I analyze how DeLillo acts as a mapper of the post-9/11 space.By exploring the depictions of the altered spatial landscape DeLillo creates, and the world he thrusts his characters into, I examine the intricate relationship between space and identity.Ultimately, I argue that the loss of a familiar and dependable space creates unfamiliar spaces the characters struggle to navigate.