David Foster Wallace's 'The Pale King," An Unfinished Novel, Coming Next Year

NEW YORK — A long, unfinished novel by David Foster Wallace is scheduled for a posthumous release next year.

"The Pale King," excerpted in The New Yorker magazine edition coming out Monday, is set in an Internal Revenue Service office in Illinois in the 1980s.

Wallace's longtime publisher, Little, Brown and Company, will release the novel. Little, Brown said in a statement Sunday that the novel runs "several hundred thousand words and will include notes, outlines, and other material."

Wallace, best known for the 1,000-page novel "Infinite Jest," was a longtime sufferer from depression who committed suicide last fall. He was 46 and had been working on "The Pale King" for several years.

Comments

[Nebris]

Delete me all you want, Wallace's work is still overwritten Hipster crap.

[BalsoSnell]

That's particularly ironic coming from such a weak writer as yourself. I encourage everyone to go check out your writing and they can make their own judgements.

[OurKoan]

2009, in Infinite Jest-speak: Y.G.S.M., sponsored by the U.S. Treasury Department

Year of Government Stimulation of the Middle

[GomboMan]

Well, it would actually have to be a sponsorship, like Year of the Enzyte Male Enhancement Pill-- of course that would have to be for a leap year.

My ten-year-old son calls 2009 The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment (no, he hasn't read IJ, he's just heard me tell him about it).

[TheZug]

While I have enjoyed some of Wallace's essays, I found Infinite Jest unreadable. Challenging indeed, but in my opinion the reward was not worth the effort. I say that with no malice toward the man; I just thought there were too many other works out there to read.

While I respect the opinions of those who think highly of the book, I do think that at times we err by thinking that density and complexity are necessarily indicators of quality. Often the small, finely wrought jewel has more to say than the weighty tome.

[IDIOTA]

Wallace is like Joyce because their works are more like deep peeks into their minds rather than novels.

[missdd]

His essays are nothing short of brilliant, as was DFW himself. I haven't found the courage yet to read Infinite Jest, but I will do so now that I have something ELSE to look forward to. After his death I wanted to 'save' IJ, as if that would keep the author alive somehow. Silly, I know, but I cannot NOT read it now. I am sure it will be demanding, but also incredibly rewarding...
Now I am sad all over again.

[Ramus]

Wallace's "Shipping Out" from Harpers (from the nineties I think) was one of the very best pieces of non-fiction writing I've ever read. Wallace sounded as though he was close to suicide on that cruise. He was one funny, honest and insightful guy. And he wrote like an angel.

[We]

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/09/hbc-90003557

[Dukedraven]

I tried to read Wallace's writings, but it wasn't my thing so I stopped. I've seen him in several interviews, including the infamous one with Charlie Rose, and he appeared to be a highly intelligent man suffering from a form of Tourettes. Given his public speaking and professorial duties, the strain must have been enormous.

[freshnotbitter]

He's wordy.

A great, great piece is "The View from Mrs. Thompson's" which is only twelve pages long and I read it in "Consider the Lobster and other Essays".

You just can't stop reading it.

[Topfeeder]

John Kennedy Toole 2.0.

[OurKoan]

I had this weird dream where I was listening to Rush L. on the radio, and his voice just morphed into Madame Psychosis's. It seemed good, and proper.

Too bad DFW isn't around today--can you imagine the wealth of material he'd be absorbing now? The great writing we'd be getting to read as a result of contemporary lunacy? Compared to Infinite Jest, perhaps only the Bible has been panned by more people who haven't read it.

[tiktokklok]

I read it.

Now I understand why he committed suicide.

[saami]

DFW is still missed. It is so difficult to think that his voice is silenced.

[scorchedhottub]

I can't read his novels, but this has less to do with the problems other posters encounter and more to do with a dislike of long works of fiction. I devour his essays, however, as if they are the only sustenance I'll ever receive. Possibly the smarted man ever.

I thought I was a very intelligent person. And then, reading DFW, I felt small and inadequate.

[sonnen]

"Possibly the smarted man ever." Nice work.

[AGarcia]

Dead people don't complain too much about royalties or seem to care about whether or not the book is finished. Just an observation...

[GomboMan]

I read quite a bit of IJ aloud to my wife (including footnotes); she loved the sound of his prose, but was never up to the challenge of reading it. She did read his collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and loved it.

I was 2/3rds the way through Broom of the System when I read a passage aloud to my wife-- that's when I got the Judith Prietht joke-- I merely thought it an odd surname before that.

[tspoon2123]

"shipping out" is brilliant, although I haven't mustered the intellectual fortitude to take on Infinite Jest. You're missed DFW.

[AmericaninIndia]

Wow, this is EXCITING! "He creates an entirely new world, complete with the boredom and banality of real life and there in is the pain and genius. Take 6 months to read it, do not give up, keep at it, force yourself..."

I'm lining up now to buy a copy. Buckle your seatbelts, folks for the most lukewarm ride of your life!

[genia]

Infinete Jest took me months to read.......I missed the characters, I actually felt empty...so.. I read it again. I am looking forward to this to be published. I'm thrilled at the chance to read one last work of DFW.