Denis Johnson died last year - the third of my three favourite American fiction writers to fall, after David Foster Wallace and Thom Jones. I always described Johnson as "the best American fiction writer you've never heard of" - though that stopped being quite so true after he won the National Book Award in 2007. Now he's left us a last gift, a posthumous, second, and final collection of short fiction. Even in death, he can still write sentences like this one. And I'm not sure anyone else can - or ever will.... (read more)
As of today, I have outlived David Foster Wallace.... (read more)
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest - which I believe to be, and can give my reasons why, the best and most important novel of the 20th century.... (read more)
I was horrified to discover that the Walter Kirn review from New York Magazine, had gone missing. I hereby reprint it. It might be the best overall review of the book. (I've often said there's no way to describe or synopsize Infinite Jest. Kern comes closest.) It was also certainly cited and quoted a hell of a lot, announcing, as it seemed to, a conquering literary colossus.... (read more)
You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers becomes a source of unbelievable joy. And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don't have that in their lives make it through the day.... (read more)
Post-Christmas, this is my new very favourite workout/running shirt. The first person to recognise it in the wild is going to get some sort of very special prize.... (read more)
“Every two or three generations the world gets vastly different, and the context in which you have to learn how to be a human being, or to have good relationships, or decide whether or not there is a God, or decide whether there's such a thing as love, and whether it's redemptive, become vastly different.”... (read more)
And what did I find on TED but that someone had done sort of an animated version of David Foster Wallace's celebrated Kenyon College commencement speech. Someone rescued this amazing, obscure, audio-only recording by a dead guy, and brought it to brilliant life.... (read more)
So I've just finished Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. Here are the top four wrenching things I learned from this engrossing and heartbreaking book.... (read more)
A major aspect of my putting-life-aside-until-I-get-the-freaking-novel done austerity was: I didn't read The Pale King. A lot of really totally fascinating DFWabilia has appeared on the web in this time - dead, the man just goes from strength to strength - and here it all is now!... (read more)
• Female medic awarded Military Cross for bravery • Hitch on the Iraq Effect in the Arab Spring • Inside David Foster Wallace's Private Self-Help Library... (read more)
"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you." - David Foster Wallace (1962 - 2008)... (read more)
I am herewith additionally reprinting David Foster Wallace's essay, "F/X Porn"... (read more)
...anomie and solipsism and a peculiarly American loneliness: the prospect of dying without even once having loved something more than yourself."... (read more)
"I keep remembering this strange little story I heard in Sunday school when I was about the size of a fire hydrant.... (read more)
The Howling Fantods - your source for all things David Foster Wallace - reports that Wallace's final novel, The Pale King, may be delayed until autumn 2010.... (read more)
Special for Easter Sunday: hilariously rude t-shirts. This might seem like kind of a strange thing to anthologize. But, back when I was working for the Civil Service, I did find the T-Shirt Humour site to be one of those things I checked in on when I was bored and depressed and needed a laugh. (And sent around when they were particularly good.) And what are rude t-shirts without a good soundtrack?... (read more)
D.T. Max has a totally stunning piece in The New Yorker: The Unfinished - David Foster Wallace's struggle to surpass Infinite Jest.... (read more)
"He makes the rest of us feel hollow for being so unoriginal in our writing and in our lives."... (read more)
An amateur novelist doesn't think he's done until his book is under a cover and piled on display tables across the land. Why do these people think this is likely to happen? Moreover, why do they imagine that it will be a rapturous, fulfilling, life-changing event if it does?... (read more)
From David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest - "You burn to have your photograph in a tennis magazine." "I'm afraid so." "Why again exactly, now?"... (read more)
Today is the official U.S. publication date of The Manuscript. It's also the day I finally knocked up a web site for Pandora's Sisters. Have a look.... (read more)
Q: Just how much Graham Greene do you intend to read, anyway? A: Every word he wrote.... (read more)
(splashy, splashy, splashy) Michael: OH MY GOD! Michael: Do you happen to have, like, a number for neighborhood pool maintenance? Alex: Hmm, you'll have to ask Jennifer. Something wrong? M: . . . There's a freaking CREATURE in the pool.... (read more)
