Set at a bucolic Midwestern college known only as The-College-on-the-Hill, White Noise follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor who has made his name by pioneering the field of Hitler studies (though he hasn't taken German lessons until this year).
In part three of the book, "Dylarama," Gladney discovers that Babette has been cheating on him in order to gain access to a fictional drug called Dylar, an experimental treatment for the terror of death.