The novel concerns a billionaire, Ross Lockhart, who is inspired by the terminal illness of his wife Artis to seek immortality for both of them through cryopreservation. The novel is narrated by Ross' son, Jeffrey. DeLillo has described Zero K as 'a leap out of the bare-skinned narratives of Point Omega and The Body Artist.'^[2]

Zero K received positive reviews from critics.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]}

The Guardian wrote, "This being DeLillo, it goes without saying that there’s a much higher quotient of beautiful sentences and arresting observations than you'd find in most other living writers", and drew particular focus to a taxi ride in New York City, "a virtuoso passage that effortlessly braids observations on money, global politics, traffic patterns, family relations, airport security rituals and the unstoppable torrent of information...in its flow, is as good as any of the great Arthur Avenue passages in Underworld.^[12]

The Observer went further, calling the book "beautiful and profound, certainly DeLillo's best since Underworld.^[13]

The New York Times was effusive in its praise, declaring "sentence by sentence, DeLillo magically slips the knot of criticism and gives his readers what Nabokov maintained was all that mattered in life and art: individual genius. Sentence by sentence, DeLillo seduces." It continued: "as in the best of DeLillo's previous novels, down to the pleasures of the final page. The scene takes place in New York, with Jeff on a crosstown bus. It ends the book powerfully. I finished it stunned and grateful. DeLillo has written a handful of the past half-century's finest novels. Now, as he approaches 80, he gives us one more, written distinctly for the 21st."^[14]

The audiobook is read by Thomas Sadoski.^[15]

In March 2017, filmmaker Charlie McDowell announced he was adapting Zero K as a limited series for FX with Noah Hawley and Scott Rudin producing.^[16]