Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (49 page)

David Foster Wallace and I never met. The closest we came was at a party in 1996 for
Infinite Jest
—the publishing party he would later tell Don DeLillo was the only one he’d ever gone to “and if God’s in his heaven it will be my last.” I had commissioned a piece on
Infinite Jest
for a magazine where I was a features editor, and so I was there in that large room with several hundred others. I was amazed to see a stocky man with long scraggly hair and a bandana, some sort of grimy shirt, granny glasses, and that expression of a deer who wishes it was anywhere but on this road. He was across a vast dance floor spot-lit. At least that’s my memory.

Because we never spoke and because he died so young, when I began to write his biography I had to look for his voice elsewhere. I turned to his friends and family. Fortunately for me the vast majority were open and willing to talk and pass on their memories.

I learned in the process of writing this book why the list of acknowledgments in biographies is always so long—because biography is a joint act, an exercise in communal remembering. And if it takes a village to write a biography, it takes a town to write the first biography of someone as complex as David. Herewith, some of the kindly residents. To all I apologize for the countless emails and repeated phone calls, the thing I asked you that I had already asked you before, the desperate requests for clarification right when you were sitting down to dinner. All I can say is Thank You. Thank you.

First, my deepest appreciation to Karen Green, David’s gracious and gifted wife.

I received welcome support also from Wallace’s family, especially his
sister, Amy, a person of caring and poise. To Bonnie Nadell, who was Wallace’s superb agent for his entire career (they met in their early twenties), I owe a significant debt of gratitude. I’d like also to point out three of Wallace’s friends who gave more help than I had the right to ask for. The first is the novelist Mark Costello, David’s roommate at Amherst. A second is Heather Aronson, David’s good friend from Arizona and a talented fiction writer too. The philosophical Corey Washington, also a friend of David’s from Amherst, showed an inexhaustible willingness to help on everything, from the minutiae of David’s Amherst grades to questions of free will and fatalism.

David had deep friendships with two other writers who helped me enormously: Jonathan Franzen, his “best of pals and lit combatant,” as Wallace called him, was one who was with him to the end. Mary Karr, the poet and memoirist, played an important role in an earlier part of his life. To Mary I owe a particular debt for helping me try to figure out what went on during David’s tumultuous Boston and Syracuse years. Any failure to make sense of these bafflingly complex days is, of course, mine (ditto errors of all sorts that may be in these pages).

There were many other writers whom Wallace knew or corresponded with in his later years. Many were kind enough to give me their recollections, among them Sherman Alexie, Tom Beller, Sven Birkerts, Tom Bissell, Don DeLillo, Dave Eggers, Jeffrey Eugenides, Lewis Hyde, Frederick Kaufman, Brad Leithauser, Mark Leyner, Ruth Liebmann, Richard Powers, George Saunders, David Sedaris, Evan Wright, and Elizabeth Wurtzel.

Now to those kind souls not mentioned above who helped as I worked my way through each of David’s ports of call in his too-short life. This list does not aim to be comprehensive—as Wallace wrote about the difficulty of writing about real life, “There’s
so much
!”

In Urbana: Mrs. Clare Barkley, Thomas Desmond, the Dessouky brothers, Maged and Yasser, John Flygare, Matt Friedman, David Ghent, Martin Maehr, Michail Reid, Brian Spano, Sherry Thompson (Mrs. McLellan when she taught at Urbana High), and Lolita Zwettler.

At Amherst: Ruth Abbe, Fred Brooke, Sylvia Kennick Brown, David Chinitz, Dave Colmar, Rajiv Desai, Willem DeVries, John Drew, Jay Garfield, Shubha Ghosh, Jonathan Glass, David Hixon, Ann Huse, Dan Javit, Andrea Justus, Nancy Kennick, Nat Larson, Brad Leithauser, Alan Lelchuk,
Miller Maley, Charlie McLagan, Andrew Parker, Dale Peterson, and Mark Valladares.

In Arizona: Jaci Aaronson, Forrest Ashby, Robert Boswell, Karen Brennan, Rich C., Andy Crockett, Alice Elman, Alison Hicks Greifenstein, Ron Hansen, Bob Houston, Zita Ingham, JT Jackson, Ken Kalfus, Rick Kempa, Will Layman, Antonya Nelson, Paul Niesen, the late Steve Orlen, Amy Pence, Jonathan Penner, Bruce Petronio, Buzz Poverman, Francine Prose, Kim Roberts, Andy Robinson, Aurelie Sheehan, Charles Sherry, and Ron Steffens.

At Yaddo: Marina Budhos, Kathe Burkhart, Robert Cohen, Stephen Dunn, Marie Howe, Jeanne McCulloch, Jay Mclnerney, and Michael Torke. I would also like to thank Elaina Richardson and Lesley Leduc for the copies of David’s applications to Yaddo.

As a teacher at Amherst: Sue Dickman, Tias Little, Margit Longbrake, John Reid, and Jessamyn West. As a teacher (briefly) in Arizona: Marvin Diogenes, Martha Ostheimer, and Tom Willard. As a graduate student at Harvard: Steven Affeldt, Roy Blumenfeld, Warren Goldfarb, Steven Gross, Mi-Kyoung Lee, Alva Noe, and Dmitri Tymoczko. At Granada House: Big Craig and Deb Larson. At Emerson: Jack Gantos, DeWitt Henry, Don Lee, and Debra Spark. In Syracuse: Doug Eich, John F., Stephanie Hubbard, Stephen J., Christopher Kennedy, Michael Martone, and Linda Perla.

In Bloomington: Francis B. and his wife, Terri, and her daughter Sarah Adams; Susan Barnett; Becky Bradway; Mimi Davis; Tim Feeney; Ron Fortune; Lee Freeman; William Gillespie; Jason Hammel; Juliana Harms; Charlie (“he saved me from the dog”) Harris and his wife, Victoria, and daughter Kymberly (the fabulous Harris family!); Amy Havel; Doug Hesse; Greg Howard; Bob McLaughlin; Erica Neely; John O’Brien; Doug and Erin Poag; Marty Riker; Joe S.; Ben Slotky; Curtis White; and Deb Wuliger. A special thank-you to Bill Flick of the
Pantagraph
for searching its archives.

The Pomona years: Margaret Adorno (Pomona’s peerless registrar), Kyle Beachy, Daniel Birkholz, Ben Casnocha, John D’Agata, Kevin Dettmar, Maria Donapetry, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Rena Fraden, Neil Gerard, John Goodson, Kaneisha Grayson, Christopher Hamacher, Patrick Jagoda, Natalie Klein, Robert Lesser, Coty Meibeyer, Kelly Natoli, Ashley Newman, Colleen O’Rourke, Caroline Potter, Jared Roscoe, Paul St. Just, John Seery, Amanda Shapiro, Bryn Starbird, and J. B. Wogan.

From the world of magazines and books, among those who worked with Wallace, special thanks go to Michael Pietsch, his editor at Little, Brown, who answered countless questions and helped me find my way through the labyrinth of
The Pale King,
and Gerald Howard, his editor at Penguin, who took me through David’s early years. Also my deep thanks to Jennifer Barton, Adam Begley, André Bernard, Marlena Bittner, Will Blythe, John Bohrer, Mark Bryant, Lisa Chase, Jesse Cohen, Charis Conn, Will Dana, Josh Dean, Peter Desrochers, John Dickerson, Jonathan Galassi, Colin Harrison, Jack Hitt, Tom Jenks, Jay Jennings, Vanessa Kehren, Bill Keller, Glenn Kenny, Stephen King, Jeannie Luciano, Gerry Marzorati, Steven Moore, Eve Rabinovits, Amy Rhodes, Gemma Sieff, Lee Smith, Bill Tonelli, Alice Turner, and Holly Wilkinson.

Sui generis is James Ryerson, who helped me with many thorny questions about Wallace and “Uncle Ludwig” (Wittgenstein). I owe a debt to his thinking and writing on Wallace’s philosophy thesis, too, and am grateful he read drafts of my passages. Wherever I went, I met Jamie on the way back, sometimes in the company of Caleb Crain, who also lent a hand in similarly difficult moments where
Everything and More
was concerned.

Stephen Lacy supplied the details of his interesting colloquy on taxes with Wallace, and Jennifer Schuessler supplemented with her own research from her excellent piece on Wallace and the IRS from the
New York Times Book Review.
David Hering of the University of Liverpool kindly shared some of his research on Wallace’s earliest drafts of
Infinite Jest
with me and was a generous sounding board to my theories.

The Wallace community is fortunate to have Nick Maniatis’s thehowlingfantods website: if you are curious about it and it’s about DFW, it’s there. I know of no author better served by his Web public. Nick graciously put out a request for letters, and several interesting pieces of correspondence came forth. Wallace wrote honestly to a wide range of people, many of whom he did not know well. Among those I’d particularly like to thank for sharing letters are Weston Cutter, Christopher Hager, Brandon Hobson, Marie Mundaca, and Nick Solomon.

Two noted Wallace scholars helped me as well. Stephen Burn of Northern Michigan University generously forwarded me correspondence and made available some of his own research, as did Marshall Boswell
of Rhodes College. Adam Kelly of University College, Dublin, and Harvard lent a hand in interpreting the role of literary theory in Wallace’s fiction. Frank Bruni shared his memories of researching his Wallace profile for the
New York Times’
magazine section, and David Streitfeld told me of his visit to Wallace’s house for
Details.
Deborah Treisman shared correspondence and memories of Wallace’s contributions to the
New Yorker.

Of the many interviewers who went before and on whom I relied for David’s words, I want to particularly signal my debt to David Lipsky, whose long-ago visit with Wallace at the time of
Infinite Jest
for
Rolling Stone
(the piece was never written) he turned into an insightful, enjoyable book, and also to Larry McCaffery, who interviewed David for the
Review of Contemporary Fiction
and kindly made his drafts available. That interview remains the point of departure for all Wallace studies.

Among archivists and librarians, I would like to give a special thank-you to Thomas Staley, the director of the Ransom Center, where David’s papers are housed, as well as to his top-notch staff, among them Megan Bernard, Andi Gustavson, Ancelyn Krivak, Molly Schwartzburg, Danielle Sigler, and Jennifer Tisdale, for their kind assistance. David McCartney helped me with the Frank Conroy papers at the University of Iowa, and Rosemary Cullen with the Brad Morrow papers at Brown University. Peter Nelson of the Amherst College archives tabulated David’s innumerable academic awards for me and found correspondence and yearbook material. Emily Boutilier put out the word to Amherst alumni who knew David.

Without all these people this book would never have been written, but there is one person who lent truly special support: Michelle Dean, a talented journalist who as my research assistant during the latter part of this work, displayed astonishing energy and commitment, playing a key role in helping to make this complicated story as accurate and comprehensive as possible. I expect to see her between her own hardcovers soon.

Two Wallace aficionados also were indispensable: Matt Bucher, who heads the Wallace-1 email list, selflessly gave of his time and energy. He read draft language and suggested improvements, drawing on his top-level knowledge of DFW. My apologies to Jordan for dragging him away from child rearing to help me again and again. And Jonah Furman, just
out of Johns Hopkins University, lent his own gifts as a fact checker, research assistant, deep Wallace reader, and sounding board.

Three other young researchers lent their time and talents too: Shelby Ozer, a talented high school senior; Becky Cooper, world-trotting polymath; and Mark Byrne, who worked as a research assistant for me while also a student in the Literary Journalism program at NYU, under the generous Professor Robert Boynton. I once asked Mark if a friend of his was also a Wallace fan, and he memorably replied: “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had a sustained friendship with someone who’s not.”

During the latter part of my research and writing I enjoyed the support of a fellowship from the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center. There I wish to thank trustee Shelby White, Judy Dobrzynski, directors past and present Brenda Wineapple and Gary Giddins, as well as Adam Begley, Madison Smartt Bell, Tom Hafer, Elizabeth Kendall, John Matteson, and Ikuyo Nakagawa. Staff members Caitlin Delohery, Michael Gately, and Alyssa Varner were enormously kind and helpful at this special institution.

At Viking Penguin, my enormous gratitude to Paul Slovak, my editor, whose enthusiasm helped propel me on this complex voyage and whose calm kept me from capsizing; his assistant, David Martin; and indefatigable editor Beena Kamlani. Also to my agent, Elyse Cheney, and her deputy, Alex Jacobs, as well as to Tania Strauss, who arrived still dipped in the glamour of Hollywood, which she got working with my film agent, Howie Sanders at UTA. And in London, my British editor, Philip Gwyn Jones, and his colleague John Freeman, who, coincidentally, once interviewed Wallace himself.

At the
New Yorker,
the editor David Remnick; my long-time editor Daniel Zalewski; and his assistants, Yvette Siegert and Andrew Marantz; editors Henry Finder and Susan Morrison. This book all started with an email from David one long-ago fall evening. There is no more talented editorial team going. They, as Wallace would say, “simply separate sock from pod.”

I want to express my appreciation to James Atlas, Patricia Bosworth, Anne Fadiman, Frances Kiernan, Brad Morrow, and Lee Siegel, all special friends and supporters in the creation of this work.

Some old friends who helped in new ways: To Alissa Land, who took a
road trip with me to what was Granada House in Brighton and endured the rigors of literary research, and to Bryan Simmons, who helped peel back the mystery from David’s brief stint as a security guard at Lotus Development—my thanks. To Shelley and Eames Demetrios, also thanks, for letting me stay in Guthrie’s room. Guthrie, thanks!

To the Montclair Public Library, where I did much of this work, partly in their wonderful Terra Tea & Fair Trade cafe, and to Panera’s on Bloomfield Avenue and the Chamagudao tea shop (now closed), where I did the rest—thank you for providing a quiet place to think about David and his work and to eat pastries.

To my in-laws, Diana Shahmoon and Charles Blustain, for more pastries and good comments. To my brothers, Eric and Adam, and their wives, Diane and Denise, yes, more baked goods. And concluding in this vein, if less probably, to Katherine Neuman of Cafe Lula, who gave me a whole apple pie (proprietor Jason Hammel, see above).