Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| The Broom of the System | 1987 |
| Infinite Jest | 1996 |
| The Pale King | 2011 |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
| Something to Do with Paying Attention | 2022 |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| Girl with Curious Hair | 1989 |
| Brief Interviews with Hideous Men | 1999 |
| Oblivion | 2004 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Signifying Rappers (With: Mark Costello) | 1990 |
| A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again | 1997 |
| Up, Simba! / McCain’s Promise | 2000 |
| Everything and More | 2003 |
| Consider the Lobster | 2005 |
| This Is Water | 2009 |
| Fate, Time, and Language | 2010 |
| Both Flesh and Not | 2012 |
| String Theory | 2016 |
About David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace (1962 to 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist, best known for his second novel, “Infinite Jest” (1996). He published two novels and three story collections in his lifetime, alongside essay collections such as “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”, and his unfinished novel “The Pale King” appeared in 2011.
Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, and grew up in Illinois, where his father was a philosophy professor and his mother taught English. As a teenager he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He studied English and philosophy at Amherst College, graduating in 1985, and adapted his English honours thesis into his first novel, “The Broom of the System” (1987). He completed a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona in the same year, and went on to teach at Emerson College, Illinois State University and Pomona College.
“Infinite Jest” is set in a near-future North America and follows Hal Incandenza, a prodigy at a tennis academy, and Don Gately, a former burglar working at a halfway house for addicts. The novel is known for its length and for its extensive endnotes. Wallace received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1997. His stories were collected in “Girl with Curious Hair” (1989), “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” (1999) and “Oblivion” (2004).
His non-fiction ranged from magazine reporting on cruise ships, state fairs, the Maine Lobster Festival and John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign to “Everything and More” (2003), a history of infinity. The commencement address he gave at Kenyon College in 2005 was published as “This Is Water” in 2009.
Wallace suffered from depression for more than 20 years and died by suicide on 12 September 2008, aged 46. His editor Michael Pietsch assembled “The Pale King” from the pages and notes he left behind, and it was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which was not awarded that year. “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men” was filmed by John Krasinski in 2009, and the 2015 film “The End of the Tour”, with Jason Segel as Wallace, is based on David Lipsky’s conversations with him. A novella excerpted from “The Pale King”, “Something to Do with Paying Attention”, was published in 2022.
Photo: Steve Rhodes, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).