The Legacy of David Foster Wallace

by Samuel Cohen

2021-01-06 00:16:48

 Considered by many to be the greatest writer of his generation, David Foster Wallace was at the height of his creative powers when he committed suicide in 2008. In a sweeping portrait of Wallace’s writing and thought and as a measure of h... Read more

 Considered by many to be the greatest writer of his generation, David Foster Wallace was at the height of his creative powers when he committed suicide in 2008. In a sweeping portrait of Wallace’s writing and thought and as a measure of his importance in literary history, The Legacy of David Foster Wallace gathers cutting-edge, field-defining scholarship by critics alongside remembrances by many of his writer friends, who include some of the world’s most influential authors.

In this elegant volume, literary critics scrutinize the existing Wallace scholarship and at the same time pioneer new ways of understanding Wallace’s fiction and journalism. In critical essays exploring a variety of topics—including Wallace’s relationship to American literary history, his place in literary journalism, his complicated relationship to his postmodernist predecessors, the formal difficulties of his 1996 magnum opus Infinite Jest, his environmental imagination, and the “social life” of his fiction and nonfiction—contributors plumb sources as diverse as Amazon.com reader recommendations, professional book reviews, the 2009 Infinite Summer project, and the David Foster Wallace archive at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Center.
The creative writers—including Don DeLillo, Jonathan Franzen, George Saunders, Rick Moody, Dave Eggers, and David Lipsky, and Wallace’s Little, Brown editor, Michael Pietsch—reflect on the person behind the volumes of fiction and nonfiction created during the author’s too-short life.
All of the essays, critical and creative alike, are written in an accessible style that does not presume any background in Wallace criticism. Whether the reader is an expert in all things David Foster Wallace, a casual fan of his fiction and nonfiction, or completely new to Wallace, The Legacy of David Foster Wallace will reveal the power and innovation that defined his contribution to literary life and to self-understanding. This illuminating volume is destined to shape our understanding of Wallace, his writing, and his place in history.
Less

Book Details

File size9 X 6 X 0.9 in
Print pages244
PublisherUniversity of Iowa Press
Publication date April 15, 2012
LanguageEnglish
ISBN9781609380823

Compare Prices

Store Availability Book Format Condition Price
BetterWorld.com - New, Used, Rare Books & Textbooks In Stock Buy USD 4.48
Indigo Books & Music In Stock Paperback Paperback Buy CAD 25.95
BetterWorld.com - New, Used, Rare Books & TextbooksIn Stock
Format
Condition
Buy USD 4.48
Indigo Books & MusicIn Stock
Format
Paperback
Condition
Paperback
Buy CAD 25.95
Available Discount
No Discount available

Join us and get access to all
your favourite books

Sign up for free and start exploring thousands of eBooks today.

Sign up for free