Even though my phd has been put on (temporary or maybe permanent) hold, I still love me some David Foster Wallace and all the various commenting on him. DT Max's new biography promises to be pretty great based on this NPR interview. Sounds like he gets it. I know I can relate. Le sigh.
NPR: I want to ask you about the title of this biography, "Every Love Story is a Ghost Story."
DT MAX: It seems to me that it captures so perfectly what he always felt was the futility, the difficulty of not just writing about people but actually being with people.
He had a great deal of trouble in his relationships and a great deal of trouble, you know, understanding relationships. And then, of course, I also felt like that was really the reader's relationship with David. It wasn't really just a reference to his suicide but obviously contained a big aspect of the fact that he was gone now, and whatever love readers felt for him was now going to be a love for an absence, for a ghost.
For the full interview, click here.
For an excerpt, click here.
For the full interview, click here.
For an excerpt, click here.
I would recommend this biography to fans of DFW's work. The context of his different works is related to those times of his life. I'm glad I read it, but I don't feel that it reveals aspects of his life and work with which I was unfamiliar.
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