Andrew Marcec » Author Spotlight – David Foster Wallace

Author Spotlight – David Foster Wallace

Apr 06, 2011 | Comments Off | @andrewmarcec

David Foster Wallace has been praised as one of America’s finest authors by critics and fans alike. But as it seems with some of the most prolific of artists out there, that genius is also mired by other personal problems, David Foster was no different.

Growing up in Champaign/Urbana Illinois David was not only a regionally ranked tennis player, but also a top student as well as astounding author. He attended Almhurst college and majored in English and philosophy. His philosophy thesis Richard Taylor’s Fatalism and the Semantics of Physical Modality, was awarded the Gail Kennedy Memorial Prize. His other senior thesis would become his first published novel, The Broom of the System.

Wallace merged into teaching after graduating from college, and also published the novel that he is most well known for, Infinite Jest.

Jest is set in a post-apocalyptic North America in the very near future. The novel, though fiction, does have several autobiographical points to it. It deals with junior tennis, substance abuse, recovery programs, and depression. All of which David had dealt with.

In 2005, Time included Jest in its list of 100 best English language novels since 1923.

Click me to buy

This is a novel I’ve been working through since high school. Not only is it long, but the intricate language that David uses, and the hundreds upon hundreds of pages of endnotes makes it for quite a difficult read. However it is one that I’m working towards…so stay tuned on Literary Wasteland!

Upon David’s death in 2008, his father came out stating that David had not only struggled with severe substance abuse, but also depression for some time. He had not only been taking prescribed meds, but also tried electroshock therapy to help cure him. However, after some time, the drugs stopped working and David’s depression worsened.

His final book, The Pale King, and unfinished work pieced together by handwritten notes was published by David’s long time agent in 2011, and a new biography is in the works to release in 2012.

The University of Texas purchased many of David’s estate. They have hundreds of books, letters, and personal items of Davids for you to review. The handwritten notes inside some of the books he used to teach with, the lot of self-help books that are sprinkled throughout volumes of Husserl and Borges, among other notable authors.

You can see more about this exhibit here.