So you've just finished //Infinite Jest// or //A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again//, or maybe you're a longtime Wallace fan looking for something similar to read. Except it's a great big world out of books out there, and who knows where to start? Which is where the DFW rec project comes in! Whether you're reading DFW for the footnotes or the weird America, hopefully we can narrow now your next fave read.
Let's start with the basics: what type of Wallace do you read?
[[Nonfiction]]
[[Fiction]]
[[credits]]
[[your fave not here? contact us!]]What do you like about DFW's nonfiction?
[[Reflections on contemporary life]]
[[Serious analysis of trivial topics]]
[[Footnotes! Footnotes! Footnotes!]]
What do you want from your fiction?
[[Stuff DFW read and loved]]
[[Stuff from DFW contemporaries]]
[[I'm looking for more general themes]]Formatting/Compiling: c zhang (made with Twine 2.0)
Recommendations: Ashley, Ryan Lackey, Andrea, Diego Baez, c zhangWe get it: we're a small group of people, DFW has a lot of fans, and there are a lot of books out there. We're going to miss stuff.
If you want to send recommendations to this list, please send an email to dfwrec@gmail.com. If possibly, please include a synposis as well as a brief summary of why you think DFW fans would enjoy the work you're recommending.Being a person in the twenty-first century is can be an exhausting, weird experience. In between reading Buzzfeed listicles or checking the Twitters, consider taking off your Google Glass and picking up one of the following books:
[[Slouching Towards Bethlehem]]
[[Changing My Mind]]
[[They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us]] "I am but a simple soul," you say. "I like it when DFW takes us on deep dives into the nature of cruise ships as metaphor for the horrors of modern life." And that is okay! DFW might have had his suspicions about Too Much Fun, but that doesn't mean his void is completely devoid of it - you try writing about the state fair without at least some level of levity.
Here are a couple of essay collections and essays for when you need some smart analysis of pop culture:
[[Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs]]
[[They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us]]
Or if you want some old-fashioned gonzo journalism, maybe you'd like:
[[My 14-Hour Search for the End of TGI Friday's Endless Appetizers]]
[[The National - A Lot of Sorrow Review]]While we can't be certain DFW read all the books on this list, our Magic 8 Ball in conjunction with a cursory knowledge of DFW's work informs us that signs point to yes. A list of all literary influences ever may be impossible, but here are a couple that might interest DFW fans:
[[Gravity's Rainbow]]
[[White Noise]]
[[The Universal Baseball Association, Inc.]]
[[Suttree]]
[[Cynthia Ozick]]Writers don't exist in a bubble, and this was certainly true of DFW, who was part of a wave of post-postmodern writers who've gone on to be literary powerhouses. A full of list of DFW's literary friends and coevals is beyond the scope of this site, but if you're looking for fiction, consider:
[[George Saunders]]
[[Jonathan Franzen]]
[[Zadie Smith]] (for nonfiction, see also [[Changing My Mind]])
[[A Visit from the Goon Squad]]
For nonfiction:
[[A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius]]What do you want from IJ-adjacent fiction?
[[Weird looks at contemporary life]]
[[Footnote fever and metafiction fun]]
[[Postmodernism]]
[[Post-postmodernism]]
[[Encyclopedic novels]]
[[Academic satire]]
[[What about something digital?]]
[[Swamplandia!]]
[[The Sky is Yours]]
[[George Saunders]]
[[Haruki Murakami]]
[[A Naked Singularity]]Okay, so it's footnotes you're looking for, is it?^^1^^ Then please consider^^2^^:
[[Pale Fire]]
[[House of Leaves]]
[[Dictionary of the Khazars]]
[[A Tale for the Time Being]]
[[A Visit from the Goon Squad]]
[[Book of Numbers]]
(1) Footnotes and/or other general playfulness with form - you want upside down as a commentary on getting lost in the narrative? You've got it!
(2) Looking for nonfiction fun with footnotes? Please check out [[Footnotes! Footnotes! Footnotes!]]^^3^^
(3) Yes, this is a completely arbitrary division; and yes, this should be read in the voice of John Mulaney.Ask a group of academics what, exactly, postmodernism is, and you'll get at least 15 different answers. So, instead of attempting an answer, just know that pomo is generally really weird and also happens to be one of DFW's main literary lineages. Here are a couple of books which, if you liked //Infinite Jest,// might prove helpful in helping define the term:
[[Pale Fire]]
[[Gravity's Rainbow]]
[[White Noise]]
[[The Universal Baseball Association, Inc.]]If defining 'postmodernism' is a quandary, pining down the nebulous category of 'post-postmodernism' is all-but-impossible. Call if performativism, meta-modernism, or whatever other term you think fits best - for the purposes of this exercise, we're going to define po-pomo writers as people who have read and admired Pynchon but who are still trying to do something a little different. It's a loose, nebulous category, but if you liked the particular weirdness of //Infinite Jest,// you might also enjoy:
(books)
[[House of Leaves]]
[[A Tale for the Time Being]]
[[A Visit from the Goon Squad]]
[[Swamplandia!]]
[[The Sky is Yours]]
[[Almanac of the Dead]]
[[Book of Numbers]]
[[A Naked Singularity]]
[[That's Not A Feeling]]
(authors)
[[George Saunders]]
[[Haruki Murakami]]//Infinite Jest// is a big book, not just in terms of length but in terms of the themes it wants to tackle re:life, the universe, and everything. Large, philosophical novels aren't a new invention - just look at //Don Quixote// or //War and Peace// - but if you're looking for some encyclopedic fiction to fill your post-IJ gap, here are a couple of suggestions:
[[House of Leaves]]
[[Gravity's Rainbow]]
[[Almanac of the Dead]]
[[Book of Numbers]]
[[A Naked Singularity]]So you really enjoyed //The Broom of the System// and its intense focus on Wittgenstein and people who are way too into Wittgenstein, or maybe you liked the parts in //Infinite Jest// where characters got militant about grammar and the OED. Academia can be a deeply weird place, and if you want more of that, may we recommend -
[[The Secret History]]
[[White Noise]]
<center> <strong> <big> Pale Fire </big> </strong> </center>
<center> <strong> <big> Vladimir Nabokov </big> </strong> </center>
Do you like footnotes? So does Charles Kinbote, the editor of late American poet John Shade's last poem, so much so that Kinbote's footnotes to "Pale Fire" far outstrip the poem itself. A novel told primarily in footnotes, Nabokov's //Pale Fire// is recommended for readers who enjoy metafiction, deeply unreliable narrators, and a narrative that deeply relies on reading between the lines.<big> <strong> <center> House of Leaves </big> </strong> </center>
<big> <strong> <center> Mark Z. Danielewski </big> </strong> </center>
To quote the blog Better Book Titles, "spooky //Infinite Jest//." Like IJ, //House of Leaves// features a missing film - here, The Navidson Record, an attempt by Will Navidson to document his family's move into a new house. Except the house keeps on changing its size, weird rooms keep popping up, and the whole thing is told through the eyes of Johnny Truant, who stumbled upon a tattered manuscrit analyzing the lost Navidson film...If you liked playing detective to piece together the plot of IJ or if you've ever been terrified of your house's weird angles, this book and its many layers of meta might work for you.<big> <strong> <center> ''Dictionary of the Khazars'' </big> </strong> </center>
<big> <strong> <center> ''Milorad Pavić'' </big> </strong> </center>
Structured as three mini-encyclopedias on the history of the Khazar people told through the lenses of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, //Dictionary of the Khazars// can be read in any sequence and in any number of ways. An allegory on religion, on the biases in the process of history making, or just a cleverly self-indulgent exercise in form? Why not all of the above and maybe more?<big><center> ''A Tale for the Time Being'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Ruth Ozeki''</big></center>
In Tokyo, former Californian teen Nao Yasutani writes about culture shock, struggling to fit in with her peers, and contemplating suicide. In an isolated island in Canada, novelist Ruth finds Nao's diary among other debris from the 2011 Tokyo earthquake and becomes emotionally invested in piecing together Nao's story--and maybe, somehow, finding Nao herself. Alternating between Ruth's narrative and Nao's diary entries, //A Time for the Time Being// also includes a glossary and an appendix which add both cultural context and digressions on topics like Schrodinger's cat and quantum physics.So you like reading about cruise ships or lobsters, but you're also looking for something a little weirder than your standard thinkpiece. Maybe you like nonfiction that's a little experimental, that plays with form and how you get information. If so, you might also enjoy:
[[Changing My Mind]]
[[Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs]]
[[A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius]]
[[88 Constellations for Wittgenstein]]<big><center> ''A Visit from the Goon Squad'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Jennifer Egan''</big></center>
Whether //A Visit from the Goon Squad// is better classified as a novel or a short story collection is up to you to decide (and believe us, there's been more than enough debate on this topic). Either way, it's hard to deny the genre-bending nature of //Goon Squad,// which follows the lives of characters from aging rockstars to tabloid journalists to sympathetic kleptomaniacs from the 1970s to the near-future. //Goon Squad's// interlaced thirteen stories experiment with a variety of styles and genres including sci-fi, PowerPoint presentation, and DFW-esque reportage (complete with footnotes!) Overall, fun, inventive, and well-deserving of its 2011 Pulitzer.<big> <strong> <center> ''Gravity's Rainbow'' </big> </strong> </center>
<big> <strong> <center> ''Thomas Pynchon'' </big> </strong> </center>
One of the seminal postmodern novels, //Gravity's Rainbow// takes place in WWII and revolves around Tyrone Slothrop, an American soldier whose sexual encounters seem to predict the locations of rocket attacks. That's the central premise of Gravity's Rainbow; its reality is a whole different beasts, with talking lightbulbs, shared dreams, and weird sex aplenty to be found in its over 700 pages. Sharp, inventive, and deeply, deeply weird, //Gravity's Rainbow// served as a touchstone for a generation of writers, Wallace among them.<center> <strong> <big> ''Swamplandia!'' </big> </strong> </center>
<center> <strong> <big> ''Karen Russell'' </big> </strong> </center>
A dysfunctional family saga taking place in the most dysfunctional state in America aka Florida, //Swamplandia!// follows the Bigtree family as they struggle to keep their alligator-wrestling theme park afloat amidst family tragedy and new business rivals. Ghostly boyfriends, minimal wage carnival jobs, a mysterious Bird Man with an alleged connection to the underworld - if you wanted a picture of the weirdness of contemporary America that also manages to be a touching family saga, //Swamplandia!// has you set.<center> <strong> <big> ''The Sky is Yours'' </big> </strong> </center>
<center> <strong> <big> ''Chandler Klang Smith'' </big> </strong> </center>
In the futuristic city of Empire City, the rich are hyperrich, criminals are cordoned in the slums of Torchtown, and giant dragons circle the city, occasionally blasting parts of it to fiery rubble. Our protagonists in this precarious hellscape are three teenagers - feral girl Abby who speaks to animals, heiress Baronness Swan Lenore Dahlberg who wants life to play out like an Austen novel, and ex-reality TV star Duncan Humphrey Ripple V who lives like he's still on Late Capitalism's Royalty. It's a weird, broken world Smith gives us, so it's not surprising that reviewers have compared //The Sky is Yours// to //Infinite Jest// given the absurdity at work in both books.
<big> <strong> <center> ''George Saunders'' </big> </strong> </center>
A contemporary of Wallace's, George Saunders writes with both deep weirdness and a lot of heart. Whether it's short stories about testing love drugs on prisoners or experimental novels about the afterlife and Civil War grief, Saunders's work combines postmodern experimentation with a New Sincerity focus on empathy and compassion.
For short fiction, perhaps try -
[[Tenth of December]]
Or if it's novels you want, go to -
[[Lincoln in the Bardo]]<big><center> ''Tenth of December'' </big></center>
<big><center>''George Saunders''</big></center>
George Saunders is known primarily as a short story writer, and if you wanted a place to start with //Tenth of December//, one of his most celebrated short story collections. Bonus: a lot of the stories are also available online!
[["Escape from Spiderhead"]]
[["The Semplica-Girl Diaries"]]
<big><center> ''Lincoln in the Bardo'' </big></center>
<big><center>''George Saunders''</big></center>
The national trauma of war and the personal trauma of a child's death, plus Honest Abe and ghosts. Made-up historical sources, experimental/semi stream-of-consciousness narration, and the trademark Saunders mix of eccentricity and heart - this might be George Saunders's first novel, but it's well-worth reading. Also won the 2017 Man Booker, if anyone cares about that.<big><center> ''Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Chuck Klosterman''</big></center>
Structured as a series of tracks on a particularly eccentric LP, //Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs// is simultaneously an analytic look at and a love letter to pop culture. Whether it's Kellogg's mascots, //The Sims//, or MTV's //The Real World//, Klosterman tackles pop culture with a contagious excitement that dips into insight without losing its sense of fun.
Also, footnotes!<center> <strong> <big> ''They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us'' </big> </strong> </center>
<center> <strong> <big> ''Hanif Abdurraqib '' </big> </strong> </center>
Whether it's a love letter to My Chemical Romance's "The Black Parade" or a mediation on what's it was like being black in the immediate aftermath of the Trump election, this essay collection has it. A poet, music critic, and noted Fall Out Boy fan, Hanif Abdurraqib writes beautiful, heartfelt prose on music, race, empathy, and the general dilemma of being human in the 21st century.<big> <strong> <center> ''Haruki Murakami'' </big> </strong> </center>
If you enjoyed the feral hamsters in //Infinite Jest,// then Murakami's menagerie of disappearing cats, cryptid sheepmen, and jazz-obsessed salarymen are probably up your alley as well! Beyond a decidedly off-kilter view of contemporary life, Murakami's tales of urban ennui and haunting nameless longing share resonances with the existential questions Wallace raises about the loneliness of modern life.
For short fiction, perhaps try -
[["Superfrog Saves Toyko"]]
[["The Second Bakery Attack"]] [[(also available: audio by LeVar Burton!]]
Or if it's novels you want, maybe start with -
[[Kafka on the Shore]]<big><center> ''Kafka on the Shore'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Haruki Murakami''</big></center>
Ask any Murakami fan what novel to start with, and you're going to get a dozen different answers depending on the time of day, the weather, and the color of your shoes. //Norwegian Wood// is probably his most accessible novel, but it also lacks some of the trademark Murakami weirdness; //IQ84// single-handedly fulfills Murakami bingo, but it's also 900 pages and thus a lot of committment to ask for a beginning. If you want a proper sampler of Murakami's novels, //After Dark// is just over 200 pages and beautifully weird, but in term of personal favorites, this writer (c zhang) would definitely recommend //Kafka on the Shore.//
At 500 pages, //Kafka// might be a bit of a commitment, but between the talking cats, runaway fifteen-year-old Oedipuses, villains named after whiskey brands, and supernatural dreams worlds, the narrative has more than enough material to fill its pages. Come for liberal literary allusions and mood of disaffected modernity, stay for the chance to figure out what exactly Murakami is trying to say about fate and guilt.center> <strong> <big> ''Slouching Towards Bethlehem'' </big> </strong> </center>
<center> <strong> <big> ''Joan Didion '' </big> </strong> </center>
Calling //Slouching Towards Bethlehem// "contemporary" is cheating a bit, but even now fifty years later, its comments on celebrity culture, failed utopias, and the lies we tell ourselves still ring aching true. Joan Didion is beloved as the bard of Californian loneliness, and //Bethlehem// is as good a place to start as any.<big><center> ''Changing My Mind'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Zadie Smith''</big></center>
Smith's first essay collection, //Changing My Mind// is love letter to criticism as act of love, less about observing books and films from a distance than from inhaling and absorbing their contents. DFW will obviously be interested in Smith's Wallace-focused chapter 17, but Smith also covers everything from Kafka to E.M. Forster to the Oscars. Also, footnotes and having fun!<big> <strong> <center> ''The Secret History'' </big> </strong> </center>
<big> <strong> <center> ''Donna Tartt'' </big> </strong> </center>
Precocious college students have bacchanal, murder happens; we spend 400+ pages learning why, and it's great. If you ever wanted an inverted detective story ("how to catch them" as opposed to "who did it") crossed with a send-up of pretentious classics students, //The Secret History// is a good place to start.Whenever you talk about DFW, it's almost impossible to not also talk about Jonathan Franzen. Fellow New Sincerity writer, close friend and literary rival, and contender for America's Greatest Curmudgeon (the man doesn't like cats!^^1^^), Franzen is a writer whose star was yoked to Wallace's for a long time. More of a traditional realist writer than an experimental one, Franzen writes big, ambitious books on the American family and psyche.
DFW fans might be particularly interested in [[Freedom]], which features what seems to be a fictionalized account of the Franzen/Wallace friendship.
(1) To be fair, cats do kill a lot of songbirds, but that's no reason to accuse an entire species of sociopathy when we live in a world where wasps exist.<big> <strong> <center> ''White Noise'' </big> </strong> </center>
<big> <strong> <center> ''Don DeLillo'' </big> </strong> </center>
//White Noise// is about many things: environmental disaster, experimental drugs for the fear of death, the power of TV and mass media to determine, and the most photographed barn in America (which, according to Google, is actually located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming). All these plot points are anchored by a, DeLillo's wry examination of the absurdity of contemporary life, and b, protagonist Jack Gladney, professor and founder of the field Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill. Like Pynchon, DeLillo is one of the major players of American postmodernism, in addition to being a personal friend of Wallace's."What if I told you that mozzarella sticks never had to end? That for $10, you could eat for free (for $10) for the rest of your natural life? That there exists a spot in the space-time continuum in which it is always Friday? That there are free refills on all Slushes™ excluding Red Bull® branded items?"
So begins intrepid reporter Caity Weaver's 14-hour stay at TGIF Friday, where she is determined to find the end of their Endless Appetizers promotion. (Spoilers - there is no end, only mozzarella). Weaver's prose is smart and witty, transforming the experience of sitting in a chain restaurant for 14 hours into an exercise in existential endurance.
[[Cool, I'm in!]]In 2013, Icelandic video artist Ragnar Kjartansson collaborated with the band //The National// to produce "A Lot of Sorrow," a six-hour long recording of The National playing their song "Sorrow" 105 times on repeat. Somehow, this was released on vinyl to the tune of nine LPs and [[an absurdly good review from Pitchfork.]] And once there's a LP, there has to be a National superfan willing to listen to and review it, right?
[[Okay, but I'd listen to this too]](goto-url: "https://gawker.com/my-14-hour-search-for-the-end-of-tgi-fridays-endless-ap-1606122925")(goto-url: "http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4150873-the-national-a-lot-of-sorrow-review") (goto-url: "https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20511-a-lot-of-sorrow/") <big><center> ''Freedom'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Jonathan Franzen''</big></center>
Like Franzen's earlier //The Corrections,// //Freedom// is a sprawling family drama combined with an examination of modern America. The family in question here is the Berglunds - a nice, Midwestern, liberal family that invariably begins to fall apart. Along for the ride is also Richard Katz, a brilliant but mercucial musician whose friendship with Walter and Patty eventually comes to strain their marriage. If you're into dysfunctional families, examinations of life in the Obama era, a general suspicion of neoliberal freedom, or endangered songbirds (and why cats are evil), //Freedom// - once called "The Great American Novel" by //Time// magazine - has all of the above in spades.<big><center> ''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Dave Eggers''</big></center>
Like several other authors we talk about throughout this project, Dave Eggers was a personal friend of DFW who also happens to be a literary star in his own right. Between founding publishing company McSweeney's, running multiple charities, and getting Emma Watson to play characters in film adaptations of his work, Eggers is still perhaps best-known for his 2000 memoir, //A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.//
A chronicle of Eggers's attempt to take care of his younger brother after the death of their parents, //Heartbreaking Work// stretches the bounds of memoir with its florid, energetic prose and enthusiastic puncturing of the fourth wall. It's a memoir written with tenderness and love, yes, but it's also a book whose prose sparkles with kinetic postmodern energy.While its 1996 publication date means //Infinite Jest// didn't quite exist in the age of digital ubiquity, DFW still managed to predict a number of features of digital technology in the form of quasi-Skype and faux Netflix. And yes, the internet is full of monsters, but it's also put out some pretty cool pieces of media/experimental arts. DFW fans may particularly enjoy:
[[17776]]
[[88 Constellations for Wittgenstein]]<big><center> ''17776'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Jon Bois''</big></center>
It's the year 17776 and no one dies; boredom demands the creation of increasingly absurd football games; the Mariner space probes narrate; existential dread strikes humans and machiines alike. Tongue-in-cheek and formally experimental, //17776// continues to be a perennial internet favorite.
[[Give me the sports ball!]]
<big><center> ''88 Constellations for Wittgenstein'' </big></center>
<big><center>''David Clark''</big></center>
Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophies on language were a major source of inspiration for Wallace, a fact that any cursory look at //The Broom of the System// can confirm. But maybe you haven't read all of //Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus// and you want an introduction to the ideas of the [[Buzzfeed-ranked hottest philosopher.]]
"88 Constellations for Wittgenstein" (to be played with the left hand) is an interactive, multimedia piece of digital art/literature that serves as both a homage to Wittgenstein and an introduction to key aspects of his work and life. It's also gorgeously constructed, and the non-linear digital format feels strangely apt for anwork about Wittgenstein.
[[I've waited years for a digital art piece about Wittgenstein]](goto-url: "https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/escape-from-spiderhead") (goto-url: "https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/escape-from-spiderhead")(goto-url: "https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football")A friend and contemporary of DFW's, Zadie Smith sold her first book, //White Teeth//, at age twenty-two, and she's been a constant literary star and public intellectual ever since. Race, familial dysfunction, and the popular culture are a few of the themes that occupy her work, and her style has been described as everything from "New Sincerity" to "hysterical realism." If you want to form your opinion on whether these labels fit, you might want to start with the following -
Fiction:
[[White Teeth]]
Non-fiction:
[[Changing My Mind]]
(goto-url: "https://dclark643f.myportfolio.com/88-constellations-for-wittgenstein") (goto-url: "https://www.gq.com/story/haruki-murakami-super-frog-saves-tokyo-full-story") (goto-url: "http://web.mit.edu/norvin/www/somethingelse/murakami.html") (goto-url: "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stitcher/levar-burton-reads/e/50981967?autoplay=true") <big><center> ''Almanac of the Dead'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Leslie Marmon Silko''</big></center>
An 800-page novel about drugs and spiritual decay and mythologizing, //Almanac of the Dead// is a six-part book that spans continents and centuries to explore the before and after of colonialism. Imagine //Infinite Jest//, except Johnny Gentle is the land of America's way of killing off all the bad white people.<big><center> ''White Teeth'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Zadie Smith''</big></center>
Smith's first and perhaps most famous novel, //White Teeth// follows the friendship between Archie Jones and Samad Iqbals and how their lives, and those of their families, intersect over several decades. An intergenerational family saga as well as a reflection on race and the #postcolonial condition, //White Teeth// is also simply a fun book, full of snappy prose and wit that balance out its serious themes.(goto-url: "https://www.buzzfeed.com/tabathaleggett/philosophers-ranked-by-hotness") <big><center> ''Book of Numbers'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Joshua Cohen''</big></center>
In this novel by Joshua Cohen, Joshua Cohen (the ghostwriter) is hired to write write the autobiography of Joshua Cohen (the tech billionaire and founder of what is defintely not Google). If that sentence took you a second to process, it's just a sample of what Joshua Cohen (the writer) offers in these 592 pages. A mediation on internet culture rife with Jewish references, //Book of Numbers// is as big and sprawling as the Internet itself. Fans of //The Pale King// may particularly enjoy its focus on modernity and the absurdity of life therein.<big> <strong> <center> ''The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.'' </big> </strong> </center>
<big> <strong> <center> ''Robert Coover'' </big> </strong> </center>
Imagine playing fantasy sports, but in 1960s, by yourself, and with dice mechanics in the style of D&D, and you basically have the plot of Robert Coover's //The Universal Baseball Association, Inc.// By day, J. Henry Waugh slogs through his unsatisfying life as an accountant; by night, he's the proprietor of The Universal Baseball Association, a fantasy baseball league where Henry and his dice rule supreme. You can't always roll nat 20s though, and when things start going wrong in Henry's league, his outside life begins to unravel as well. Robert Coover's a major name in postmodernism, and though //Universal Baseball Association// was published in 1968, it's still scarily relevant today. <big><center> ''A Naked Singularity'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Sergio de la Pava''</big></center>
A Wallacean take on the criminal justice system, //A Naked Singularity// focuses on Casi, a second-generation Columbian-American who works as a public defender in Manhattan. Though Casi is precocious and dedicated, the US criminal system is perhaps the most formidable opponent of all when it comes to justice, and trying to parse sense out of it leads Casi down a road that soon leads to plotting to pull off the Perfect Crime. Among other things, of course, because //A Naked Singularity// is nearly 700 pages, with digressions aplenty on topics from boxing to quantum physics to the legal categorization of trucks.
Quoting directly from the University of Chicago Press's official description: "If //Infinite Jest// stuck a pin in the map of mid-90s culture and drew our trajectory from there, //A Naked Singularity// does the same for the feeling of surfeit, brokenness, and exhaustion that permeates our civic and cultural life today." And while that "today" may refer to 2008 - the original date of //A Naked Singularity//'s publication - that feeling of surfeit, brokenness, and exhaustation is still pretty spot-on in describing today.<big><center> ''That's Not A Feeling'' </big></center>
<big><center>''Dan Josefson''</big></center>
When I was a young boy, my parents took me into the country to see a boarding school...and left me there, hoping it'd help me get over the whole wanting to kill myself thing. So begins sixteen-year-old Benjamin's time at Roaring Orchards School for Troubled Teens, where the adults are almost as eccentric as their patients. Blurbed by Wallace himself, That's Not A Feeling is a darkly comic look at adolescence and mental health. <big> <strong> <center> Suttree </big> </strong> </center>
<big> <strong> <center> Cormac McCarthy </big> </strong> </center>
Not being a dire post-apocalyptic neo-westerns about the fundamental brokenness of human society, //Suttree// is a bit of a departure from Cormac McCarthy's usual fare. Rather more sprawling and light-hearted than //The Road// or //No Country for Old Men,// //Suttree// follows Cornelius Suttree, a Tennessee fisherman who's hoping that life on the fringes of society will prove more satisying than his previous life of luxury. There's a hint of Faulker and Flannery O'Connor in McCarthy's depiction of the South, and //Suttree//'s long, poetic passages are strikingly similar to some of the few pastoral passages in //The Pale King.//
And with DFW listing McCarthy as one of the best writers in an [[Amherst]] interview, the rest of his (dire, post-apocalyptic, neo-western) work is well-worth checking out as well.In an interview with alma mater [[Amherst]], DFW named Cynthia Ozick along with Don Delillo and Cormac McCarthy as "pretty much the country’s best living fiction writers." Delillo and McCarthy are a little better known (the perks of prominent movie adapations + masculinity), Ozick is a literary legend in her own right, known primarily for short stories and novels that explore questions of trauma and Jewish-American identity.
Ozick's most famous work is probably [["The Shawl"]], a brief but powerful story of Holocaust brutality (so you know, cw for all that entails). If you want something longer, //[[The Puttermesser Papers]]// was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Awards and serves as a neat introduction to many of the themes (Jewish history, family ties, etc) that pervade her work. (goto-url: "https://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/extra/node/66410") (goto-url: "https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1980/05/26/the-shawl") <big> <strong> <center> The Puttermesser Papers </big> </strong> </center>
<big> <strong> <center> Cynthia Ozick </big> </strong> </center>
Like Ozick, Ruth Puttmesser is Jewish, from the Bronx, and well-versed in literary history. Unlike Ozick, Puttermesser lives in a magical realist version of New York, one in which job disappointments can lead to the accidental creation of golems which then help one become Mayor of New York City. Tragic and comic by turns, //The Puttermesser Papers// is a good a start as any to Ozick's work.