For the first biography of the late David Foster Wallace, Max had access to the writer’s letters , manuscripts, and audio tapes, as well as the cooperation of his family and friends. The result is a rich portrait of a brilliant man who struggled hard against depression and substance abuse to become not only a major writer, but truly the singular voice of his generation.
The first biography of the most influential writer of his generation, David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace was the leading literary light of his era, a man who not only captivated readers with his prose but also mesmerized them with his brilliant mind. In this, the first biography of the writer, D. T. Max sets out to chart Wallace’s tormented, anguished and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, Infinite Jest.
Since his untimely death by suicide at the age of forty-six in 2008, Wallace has become more than the quintessential writer for his time—he has become a symbol of sincerity and honesty in an inauthentic age. In the end, as Max shows us, what is most interesting about Wallace is not just what he wrote but how he taught us all to live. Written with the cooperation of Wallace’s family and friends and with access to hundreds of his unpublished letters, manuscripts, and audio tapes, this portrait of an extraordinarily gifted writer is as fresh as news, as intimate as a love note, as painful as a goodbye.
D. T. Max, a graduate of Harvard University, is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of The Family That Couldn’t Sleep: A Medical Mystery. He lives outside of New York City.
