David Foster Wallace's Letter To Harper's Demanding No Edits

Letters of Note has unearthed (via Flickr) a cover letter both funny and deadly serious that David Foster Wallace faxed to Harper's magazine demanding no edits on an essay he wrote on Kafka. His exact words, footnoted of course: "I will find a way to harm you or cause you suffering if you fuck with the mechanics of the piece." Presumably the charming strong-arm worked better here than it might have at the New Yorker. Click over to Letters of Note for an image of the original, complete with Wallace's skull and bones signoff, or read the transcript below. :

ATTEMPTED FAX COVER SHEET

From: David Wallace

To: Joel Lovell, Harper's [redacted] (Office [redacted])

This is pretty much the best I can do, I think. I feel shitty sticking a lot of what you wanted in FN’s, but I didn’t see any work to work it into the main text w/o having to rewrite whole ¶s and throw the thing’s Styrofoamish weight off.

The deal is this. You’re welcome to this for READINGS if you wish. What I’d ask is that you (or Ms. Rosenbush, whom I respect but fear) not copyedit this like a freshman essay. Idiosyncracies of ital, punctuation, and syntax ("stuff," "lightbulb" as one word, "i.e."/"e.g." without commas after, the colon 4 words after ellipses at the end, etc.) need to be stetted. (A big reason for this is that I want to preserve an oralish, out-loud feel to the remarks so as to protect me from people’s ire at stuff that isn’t expanded on more; for you, the big reason is that I’m not especially psyched to have this run at all, much less to take a blue-skyed 75-degree afternoon futzing with it to bring it into line with your specs, and you should feel obliged and borderline guilty, and I will find a way to harm you or cause you suffering* if you fuck with the mechanics of this piece.)

Let Me Know,

Dave Wallace

* (It may take years for the oportunity to arise. I'm very patient. Think of me as a spider with a phenomenal emotional memory. Ask Charis.)

(Letters Of Note via NYMag)

Comments

[rickmail6]

06:23 AM on 10/23/2011

This is a perfect example of the lousy journalism practiced at Huff Post...anything to pique one's curiosity, so they get more hits, sell more advertising...without any sense of responsibility to the truth or to telling the full story...and I'm getting tired of it. Huff Post, you are in danger of loosing your readers. This very famous and highly talented author was a manic depressive, on medication, with recent sessions of electro-convulsive therapy , who gave up trying to pull himself together and killed himself. No way did the author of this article not know that. First, you don't make fun of the dead. Second, you don't make fun of people who are struggling with mental illness. If you do those two things, you are a dick. If you do it to make a living, you're pathetic.
And if you do it at Huff Post, you are in league with profit crazed bottom feeders.

[odinfellow]

10:51 AM on 10/24/2011

How is this making fun of Wallace?

[halhobbs]

11:02 PM on 10/22/2011

Why is he loose? Sounds like something serious trying to happen at the hands of this loon.

[natal plum]

09:40 PM on 10/22/2011

Read the letter and the question still remains - whooooo is this guy?

[odinfellow]

10:54 AM on 10/24/2011

When you are a low budget, semi-illiterate you are sometimes left with open-ended questions that will remain open-ended because you are a semi-illiterate. It goes with the territory.

[George Hensler]

07:55 PM on 10/22/2011

David Foster Wallace was a talented novelist and enjoys a high critical reputation. It's a fact, though, that he suffered from mental illness and this note is simply one more example of it's effect on his life and behavior.

[Brian Workman]

07:35 PM on 10/22/2011

"Boring!".

[ChampionWriter]

07:05 PM on 10/22/2011

He sounds a bit whacked.

[Agdoc]

08:40 PM on 10/22/2011

Actualy, he sounds like an egotistical dick.

[odinfellow]

10:54 AM on 10/24/2011

Geniuses sometimes come off that way.

[natal plum]

05:24 PM on 10/22/2011

His writing, at least in the letter is awkward and grating. Wonder what the book looks like

[WillowBreeze]

05:06 PM on 10/22/2011

Just another clever artist with a sense of humor. Writers are very sensitive over their work and it's widely known that editors are a dime a dozen. Once published, they usually get what they want. It was a funny note that swayed toward a personal relationship with the recipient...and some free press goes along with it.

[seattleite4]

07:39 PM on 10/22/2011

...and I wonder what he did to Charis....

[realwoman8]

11:22 PM on 10/22/2011

Hey, I'm an editor, and I want you to know that our rates have gone up to a quarter a dozen!

[WillowBreeze]

12:03 AM on 10/24/2011

That much? I was a senior manager for 20-years working my way up the chain so I know the game well. If you are an editor, you know how expendable we are.

[onkelpetey]

04:31 PM on 10/22/2011

Well, to quote Jerry Stiller's Arthur Spooner Character on "King of Queens": "Well, that's five seconds of my life wasted."

[WRPrintz]

01:48 AM on 10/22/2011

From the tone of it he was not entirely serious>>>note to friends perhaps?

[jokamachi]

04:20 PM on 10/21/2011

Writers and editors at odds with each other. Who knew?

[Dante in Madison]

03:42 PM on 10/21/2011

He misspelled opportunity.

[heboprotagonist]

01:15 PM on 10/22/2011

Last week my wife noticed that he use the non-word "ir-regardless" in one of the short stories in "Oblivion".

I guess even the most hard-core grammarians take a misstep occasionally.

[joe477]

07:12 PM on 10/22/2011

maybe he did it on purpose. i can imagine some writers (such as myself) doing it for no other reason than to see if the reader is paying attention. he obviously has a sense of humor. writing shouldnt be so strict IMO. Or maybe this letter was a result of the editor being so incompetent in letting that error slide.

[EMGray]

10:13 PM on 10/25/2011

was it dialogue? Maybe it was part of a character and intentional.

[ChampionWriter]

07:04 PM on 10/22/2011

So much for him not wanting this to be treated like a freshman's essay. Good catch, Dante in Madison.

[ringmaster]

03:06 PM on 10/21/2011

big reason is that I’m not especially psyched to have this run at all, much less to take a blue-skyed 75-degree afternoon futzing

Give him his way, don't run it.

[christopherallenjoseph]

02:26 PM on 10/21/2011

This was quite funny