David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel The Pale King was published this year, an excellent excuse (if one is really needed) to reflect on the career of a lesser-known writer whose tragic life story was foreshadowed and examined in his own fiction.
A teacher at Pomana College, and recipient of a MacArthur genius grant in 1997, Wallace came to the attention of a wider audience following the release of his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, an examination of addiction and substance abuse in a dystopian near future. Wallace, who had battled severe depression for most of his adult life, committed suicide in 2008, at the age of 46.
Wallace left behind a fascinating (but small) body of work, including several collections of short stories, essays and articles. His non-fiction writing spanned politics, travel, sports and literary criticism, and in his sprawling, post-modern novels he covered a similarly broad range of subject matter.
Wallace supplemented his texts with encyclopaedic endnotes; endlessly expanding, clarifying and commenting on items of general knowledge and textual minutiae, and fleshing out his fictional worlds.
Wallace is often compared to the likes of Thomas Pynchon and Dom Delillo, as a post-modern writer reacting to consumerism, globalization and white collar existence; chronicling life in the late modern West. Both his fiction and non-fiction are infused with a sense of place and time, a willingness to explore and record modernity; from corporate America to hip-hop.
His clinical depression, for which he underwent electro-shock therapy, is a constant presence in his writing. From his, often black, humour to his frank and shocking portrayals of sufferers of depression, and even his detailed knowledge of prescription drugs, his illness informed and certainly inspired much of his work.
He unflinchingly explored the dichotomy between the self and the disease to which he finally succumbed, leaving us with a tantalising glimpse into the mind of a smart, authentic, fragile talent who was only beginning to realise his potential.