Every love story is a ghost story
by D. T. Max · first published 2012
75% recommend25% neutral
"The first biography of the most influential writer of his generation, David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace was the leading literary light of his era, a man who not only captivated readers with his prose but also mesmerized them with his brilliant mind. In this, the first biography of the writer, D. T. Max sets out to chart Wallace's tormented, anguished and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, Infinite Jest. Since his untimely death by suicide at the age of forty-six in 2008, Wallace has become more t
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…share what I really thought and felt with others. Reading the book is like entering an intimate communion with DFW's mind and it reinforced in me the importance of inter-human connection in that way. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story (D.T. Max) DFW's biography, which I read after Infinite Jest. I highly recommend reading after IJ to get more background on where the books idea's came from. Two things I learned: 1. IJ basically took…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…definitely get a sense of how tight his prose is - what would be egregiously long and cumbersome run-on sentences for any other writer are fluid and make perfect sense as spiraling thoughts. I'd recommend "Every Love Story is a Ghost Story," D.T. Max's biography of DFW. It gives a good outline of his life without straying too far into speculation/psychoanalysis. I usually try to approach books without any knowledge of the author but I feel…
on ““The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]” ↗Pleasantly surprised to see this on HN. I've read all of DFW's work and he's such an interesting writer/human being. The biography "Every Love Story is a Ghost Story" is a must-read for anyone who's interested. My favorite lines he wrote are in IJ: "you'll worry a lot less about what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do."
on “A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace” ↗FD and Pynchon share that title from what I remember from Every Love Story is a Ghost Story. Pynchon's V. inspired DFW to write his first novel, The Broom of the System.
on ““The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]” ↗Reading the DFW biography, Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story, it said that there were hundreds of cases where the editor claimed something was a typographical error, and DFW insisted that actually it was precisely how he meant it to be. They went back and forth…
on “Dubious Math in Infinite Jest (2009)” ↗