Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace - Tapa dura

Praise for "Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story" "All dedicated readers of contemporary American literature will know the tragic, haunting and ultimately unfathomable story of David Foster Wallace, the prodigiously gifted writer - no, genius - who reshaped the contours of both the novel and long-form nonfiction in his far-too-brief life. D. T. Max has now provided answers to the questions that can be answered and asked, with tact and grace, the ones that can't. His biography is a model of deep scholarly excavation and acute sensitivity, an exemplary feat of literary portraiture." --James Atlas, author of "Bellow: A Biography " "This book is vey well-researched, deeply sympathetic, and incredibly painful to read. We should feel grateful that this story was told by someone as talented and responsible as D.T. Max." --Dave Eggers, author of "A Hologram for the King " "This book should be handed to anyone who wants to write, if only to remind the aspiring writer that becoming a voice of generational significance turns out to be very poor insulation indeed from struggle, fear, and despair. D. T. Max is beautifully attuned to Wallace's strengths, whether personal or literary, and bracingly clear-sighted on his flaws. The result is a book that's moving, surprising (Wallace voted for Reagan?), and hugely disquieting. If you love Wallace's work, you obviously need to read this book; if you don't love Wallace's work, you especially need to read this book." --Tom Bissell, author of "The Father of All Things " "A damnably readable, streamlined, yet deeply researched work. Skipping the ancestors and aftermath of conventional biography, Max gives us the man, his work, and his times--the niceties of which (so complicated, so exquisitely intertwined) Max articulates with, well, Wallace-like lucidity and wit. Above all this is the story of a touching young man who insisted on being something better than simply the smartest person in the room." --Bl

In his lifetime, David Foster Wallace was lauded by critics and loved by fans. But even to those who had barely read his work, he was something of a cult figure. Since his suicide in 2008, Wallace has become the Kurt Cobain of the printed word, and his life and death now stand as symbols of a generation's hopes and their despair. In this compelling account of Wallace's evolution from anxious adolescent into post-modern anti-hero, D. T. Max speaks to those who knew him intimately and those who were drawn to him from afar to tell the story of a man struggling to write authentically about "what it is to be a f***ing human being" against the frenetic noise of modern life and the cavernous void of American culture. This is a story of drugs and depression, of madness, competitiveness, genius and creativity intertwined, of a man who felt profoundly lost but still found a way to capture this lostness in words and hold it defiantly aloft, like a flag for his generation.