David Foster Wallace

December 14, 2011 2011 was a terrific year for fiction — both from first-time novelists and much-decorated veterans. Maureen Corrigan's recommendations range from Karen Russell's dazzling debut, to David Foster Wallace's posthumously published novel, to what may be the Sept. 11 novel.

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April 5, 2011 David Foster Wallace committed suicide in 2008, leaving behind one of the brightest literary legacies of his generation. His triumph, Infinite Jest, remains his best-known work, but now, a new unfinished novel, The Pale King, has emerged from notes and drafts. And it is worth the read.

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April 2, 2011 Writer David Foster Wallace's last and most ambitious work, The Pale King, will be published this month by Little, Brown. The book, his editor says, attempts a challenge no novelist has ever taken on: to write about the boring parts of life. But would the author want us to read it?

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March 4, 2009 When writer David Foster Wallace committed suicide last September, he left behind hundreds of pages of an unfinished novel that he'd been working on for years. Author D.T. Max discusses the late author's years of mental illness and his unfinished work.

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July 3, 2006 If David Lipsky had to give an alien one book about American life, it would be David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster, a collection of essays that are "experiential postcards." Lipsky is the author of Absolutely American : Four Years at West Point.

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