Shelving: Every Love Story is a Ghost Story by DT Max

Anyone with even a passing interest in contemporary literature, particularly that of the last two decades, lives under the specter of David Foster Wallace. It feels, I don't know, decadent, reading D.T. Max's bio, Every Love Story is a Ghost Story , just a few scant years after DFW's death. I can't say his suicide in 2008 was shocking, given that his battle with depression was well-documented, but it was a sad ending to a man still full of promise, but who had already contributed so much. Even if you're not a fan of his work (and, admittedly, a lot of the time I wasn't), his influence, as well as his use of copious footnotes, had echoed through the literary world.

A large chunk of Max's book focuses on the writing process behind Wallace's Infinite Jest, the massive tome that named him, but also the disease that inevitably claimed his life. I appreciate his willingness not to sanctify Wallace, and even make him look like kind of ass, which he probably was. 

Not a whole lot was said about the lit world's boy's club atmosphere, but Wallace was part of the "brat pack" of the 80s and 90s that was almost exclusively white, male, and middle-class. His relationships with Mary Karr and Elizabeth Wurtzel were well-documented, but always presented as conquests rather than peers. I guess it's naive on my part to expect more, but it made for some uncomfortable reading at times.

So many biographies are hastily thrown together or hagiographic fan nonsense, but this one did a nice job of combining respectability with honesty, and I think any DFW fan would enjoy it.