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[....[ In the end, I can't think of another writer whose work was more engaged with the difficult demands of simple human decency. Wallace was a Midwestern Kafka, the Borges of Normal, Illinois, and, for the rest of my life, I know that whenever something interesting happens, culturally, politicall…

[...] The day I bought BIWHM at the Community Bookstore in Brooklyn, I was still reeling from having been recently left by my fiancee (I even spontaneously asked out the girl who rang the book up; she said no), and was basically spending ungodly amounts of time alone. I went to the movies alone, …

[...] I'm pretty sure the "Sarah" and "Eric Yang" from "Church Not Made with Hands" are the implied questioner and questionee from the final Brief Interview, in which we learn about a woman who saves herself from being murdered by a deranged mulatto. The man in this Brief Interview, who tells the s…

[...] the harrowing David Lipsky piece Rolling Stone published after his death, wherein we find Dave confessing to Jonathan Franzen that, in Jon's words, Dave had a "notion of not having an authentic self. Of being just quick enough to construct a pleasing self for whomever he was talking to. I s…

[...] Although their victories have never been as decisive as those of ancient generals and golden-age imperialists, the rulers of our era do exercise a special kind of dominion. Above and beyond the monopoly of violence claimed by the major states, there has emerged a new kind of command, a monopo…