Two of Wallace's most famous nonfictional texts, "E Unibus Plu-ram" (1993) and This Is Water (2005), essential to Wallace's manifesto, are sociological to the core. In them, Wallace explores the causes of American social predicaments and submits solutions to them. This indicates the centrality of sociology to his literary project. Part of his diagnosis is that "this is a generation that has an inheritance of absolutely nothing as far as meaningful moral values, and it's our job to make them up, and we're not doing it." Part of his solution is that writers must produce literature that functions "as an anodyne against loneliness," i.e., their duty is to recreate a sense of community.

This is the structure of Wallace's sociology: to define the predicament against which he can theorize writing as therapeutic, corrective, redemptive, and a response to the problems of our time. This is why his sociology constitutes the foundation of his intellectual project. There is no division between Wallace's fiction and nonfiction. His fictional production explicitly refers to its historical, social, political, ethical, and metaphysical context, i.e., to what is addressed in the nonfiction. His work thus constitutes a unity with one clear goal: to find the possibility of salvation from unbearable suffering.