Infinite Jest (30th Anniversary Edition) - by David Foster Wallace (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The "grandly ambitious, wickedly comic" modern classic about the pursuit of happiness in America, now in a new 30th anniversary edition (Seattle Times).

Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human -- and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.

"The next step in fiction...Edgy, accurate, and darkly witty...Think Beckett, think Pynchon, think Gaddis. Think." --Sven Birkerts, The Atlantic

Review Quotes

"A virtuoso display of styles and themes...There is generous intelligence and authentic passion on every page." --Time

"A work of genius...grandly ambitious, wickedly comic, a wild, surprisingly readable tour de force."--Seattle Times

"Uproarious...Infinite Jest shows off Wallace as one of the big talents of his generation, a writer of virtuosic talents who can seemingly do anything."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

About the Author

David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1962 and raised in Illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and English from Amherst College and wrote what would become his first novel, The Broom of the System, as his senior English thesis. He received a masters of fine arts from University of Arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University. His second novel, Infinite Jest, was published in 1996. Wallace taught creative writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College, and published the story collections Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion, the essay collections A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and Consider the Lobster. He was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers' Award, and was appointed to the Usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He died in 2008. His last novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011.