Fans of the late David Foster Wallace can take solace that one more work of Wallace’s will come to light. The Guardian reports that the unfinished novel, The Pale King will be released by a UK publisher after a fierce auction that came down to six British publishers.
The book is about the monotonous, humdrum daily lives of IRS employees, and is said to be as good as Foster Wallace’s most famous work, Infinite Jest. Foster Wallace even went to work for the IRS for a time as research.
While detailed structural outlines were recovered along with the partial manuscript, Simon Prosser, the publishing director of Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton (who had the successful bid for the rights) is resolute that the manuscript will be published as is, rather than anyone attempting to ‘finish’ it.
“You’ll get literally 50 pages of a perfect section, then a note to himself saying ‘insert X here’. In a lot of cases, the X exists, but there will be some parts that don’t. The challenge will be to remain as true as possible to what is there,” he said. “Personally I think that if ‘notes to self’ are included, it’ll be fine. We’ll obviously present it as an unfinished novel – he himself thought he hadn’t finished it. What’s so tragic is that he didn’t realise how close he was.”
David Foster Wallace committed suicide in September 2008 after years of struggling with depression.
By David Foster Wallace:
Novels:
The Broom of the System
Infinite Jest
Short stories and collections:
Girl with Curious Hair
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Oblivion
Nonfiction works:
Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race In the Urban Present (with Mark Costello)
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity
Consider the Lobster: and Other Essays
