« Bookmarks | "Dead" Lit Comes to Life » |
On the Web Mon Nov 26 2012
For All of the Unbecoming Skeletons
D.T. Max's biography of David Foster Wallace, Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story, bares unbecoming skeletons, according to Ryan Bloom of The American Prospect. Some of those darker stories, though, are indicative of the relatable parts of Wallace through which the late writer tried to communicate at the end of his life.
According to Bloom's November 26 piece, the biography makes apparent Wallace's "quest to connect with other minds, to make people feel less alone," and says that his time growing up in Champaign, Illinois may have informed his later writing. Bloom writes that "it was in the Midwest that Wallace grew up amid strips of modest homes, ever-present neighbors, packs of kids on bikes, and endless fields of soy and corn, absorbing the value of community and normalcy."