So, right when "Infinite Jest" hit and David Foster Wallace was doing his first book tour/was in the process of being anointed, Rolling Stone sent David Lipsky to interview him. Over five days, Lipsky traveled around with him to readings, Denny's, airports, etc., and they had a rolling, "My Dinner With Andre"-type conversation. Afterwards, Rolling Stone decided not to print it and Lipsky just kept the tapes. Following Wallace's suicide, Lipsky printed an excerpt in RS and then wrote this book.
Whether or not you're interested in "Infinite Jest" (it shows up in the background over and over as if it's the elephant everyone knows is there, gets referred to obliquely every so often to remind the participants that they're aware it's there, but then back to Michael Bay movies and trying to laid on book tours), it's a fascinating piece of work. Take a guy who has a deep, deep understanding of celebrity culture who suddenly becomes a celebrity himself and is so hyper-intelligent that he can't help but second-, third- and fourth-guessing his every move as he tries desperately to be the best version of the person he and the public want him to be with the coda that, of course, he committed suicide twelve years later still working on the same novel he'd been trying to complete since "Infinite Jest," "The Pale King" (which'll finally hit next year as "an incomplete novel").
Like a lot of bios published in the wash of a suicide, there's a real sense of "Now You Know Why He Did It" to this text, but I think there's a lot more here than that. I was left thinking that if Wallace had been born in the twenties or thirties, had been an active writer in the fifties, sixties or seventies, he might have made it and we'd have several more books, an Updike or, similarly tortured, a Cheever. But that intense pressure and self-awareness of his place in the culture magnified over those five days is absolutely insane and how hard he fights it, tries to make it seem that, in fact, he's not a careerist, etc., just shows how hard he was trying to make it work.
A great book that I can't stop thinking about. Perhaps, you would like it, too - especially those of you who have grown up with the publishing industry going through their years of super-anointing The Next Big Thing which seems to have started in the eighties with the overnight literary celebrity of several authors that just never lived up to the hype. Interestingly enough, there's a lot of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" in this miasma, too. A good companion piece to the Lipsky.
Whether or not you're interested in "Infinite Jest" (it shows up in the background over and over as if it's the elephant everyone knows is there, gets referred to obliquely every so often to remind the participants that they're aware it's there, but then back to Michael Bay movies and trying to laid on book tours), it's a fascinating piece of work. Take a guy who has a deep, deep understanding of celebrity culture who suddenly becomes a celebrity himself and is so hyper-intelligent that he can't help but second-, third- and fourth-guessing his every move as he tries desperately to be the best version of the person he and the public want him to be with the coda that, of course, he committed suicide twelve years later still working on the same novel he'd been trying to complete since "Infinite Jest," "The Pale King" (which'll finally hit next year as "an incomplete novel").
Like a lot of bios published in the wash of a suicide, there's a real sense of "Now You Know Why He Did It" to this text, but I think there's a lot more here than that. I was left thinking that if Wallace had been born in the twenties or thirties, had been an active writer in the fifties, sixties or seventies, he might have made it and we'd have several more books, an Updike or, similarly tortured, a Cheever. But that intense pressure and self-awareness of his place in the culture magnified over those five days is absolutely insane and how hard he fights it, tries to make it seem that, in fact, he's not a careerist, etc., just shows how hard he was trying to make it work.
A great book that I can't stop thinking about. Perhaps, you would like it, too - especially those of you who have grown up with the publishing industry going through their years of super-anointing The Next Big Thing which seems to have started in the eighties with the overnight literary celebrity of several authors that just never lived up to the hype. Interestingly enough, there's a lot of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" in this miasma, too. A good companion piece to the Lipsky.
