David Foster Wallace was an acclaimed American author of novels (most notably Infinite Jest), short stories, and essays. He's known widely for his works, and has been dubbed with titles like "most important writer of his generation" and "most innovative writer of the late 20th century." He was also an English Professor here at ISU! Some current ISU professors remember him as a quiet, but witty and eccentric man, and some witnessed his rise to fame after his publication of Infinite Jest, which was published while he was still teaching at ISU.
Early Life/Education
Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, on February 21, 1962. His family moved to Illinois where they raised David in Champaign-Urbana. Suitingly, both of his parents were university professors. His father taught philosophy at U of I in Champaign-Urbana while his mother taught English at Parkland College, a community college in Champaign. He went to Urbana High School and picked up tennis there, and he became a nationally ranked player. David was also a good singer and spent time in glee club. Taking after his parents, he went on to major in English and philosophy at Amherst College, with a focus on modal logic. In 1987, Wallace completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of Arizona. From there, he went to graduate school at Harvard for philosophy, but left shortly after to be closer to his at the time girlfriend, memoirist Mary Karr.
Career
Wallace published his first novel in 1987, The Broom of the System, which was derived from his honors thesis for his English major. The Broom of the System received critical praise as well as nationwide attention. Two years later, he released Girl with Curious Hair, a collection of short stories. In 1991, he got a position as an adjunct professor at Emerson College in Boston. A year later, he started teaching in the English department at ISU, where he continued to teach as much as his schedule would allow him until 2002. There, he began working on Infinite Jest, a massive piece (1079 pages) until it was finally published in 1996. Infinite Jest received almost universal acclaim and is recognized as one of the best books of the twentieth century, which naturally dubbed David Foster Wallace as an accomplished author. Afterwards, Magazines like Harper’s and the Atlantic assigned him journalistic projects like covering state fairs, cruise ships, and tornadoes, among other topics with other magazines. He later published his other notable works: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (1997), Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999) and Oblivion (2004). He was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship and Aga Khan Prize for Fiction for a story in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. He was also awarded a Lannan Literary Award and a Whiting Writers' Award.
Legacy at ISU
Wallace came to ISU in 1993 while working on Infinite Jest to work in the English department. He lived at 307 S. Woodrig Road, Bloomington, which is where he completed Infinite Jest. Locally, places of interest to him include St. Matthews Episcopal Church (where he attended his AA meetings), Denny’s on S. El Dorado Rd (mentioned in Brief Interviews With Hideous Men), Monical’s Pizza (where his first interview with Lipsky took place), Garden of Paradise (he often ate here), Cracker Barrel (his favorite restaurant) Babbitt’s Books (his favorite bookstore, where he often met with students), and the Coffeehouse and Deli, another location where he often met with students. Wallace was relatively famous at this point, so Bloomington-Normal served as a retreat for him away from the press and attention, which allowed him to work anonymously.
As a professor at ISU, he was pretty intimidating to students because of the rigorous style of his course and grading as well as his reputation as a well-known author. According to a former student, Caitlin Dwyer:
“On the first day of class, Dave wore a cut-off Star Wars sweatshirt and a bandana to tie back his greasy hair. His spectacles gleamed. If I had been expecting the wunderkind of Infinite Jest, my idealized visions crumbled as I watched him spit a stream of black tobacco spittle into a Slurpee cup. He looked less like a militant grammarian than a transient who had accidentally wandered into the English Department. Previous students of Dave Wallace had warned me of his tongue-lashings, his obsessive precision with language, his voluminous footnotes. I had arrived with my armor on, ready for a writerly battle with a giant of literature. But this guy, frankly, looked like a goofball.”
Some fellow professors also concur that David wasn’t nearly as intimidating as his work may lead one to believe. English professor Victoria Frenkel Harris said:
“He had lightning-fast wit, but was never hurtful or caustic. He wouldn’t hold forth at parties or gatherings, though I imagine that is what people wanted from him. He would have quiet conversations with one person, and it generally turned out to be the most interesting conversation happening.”
Wallace’s syllabus was “a work of art” according to professor Frenkel Harris. His course consisted of cheap, mass market paperbacks, including Stephen King, C.S. Lewis, James Ellroy, and the like. It’s most definitely not the conventional syllabus college students are accustomed to; Wallace is incredibly detailed and explicit in his expectations. Here is an interesting excerpt:
“Anybody gets to ask questions about any fiction-related issues she wants. No question about literature is stupid. You are forbidden to keep yourself from asking a question or making a comment because you fear it will sound obvious or unsophisticated or lame or stupid. Because critical reading and prose fiction are such hard, weird things to try to study, a stupid-seeming comment or question can end up being valuable or even profound. I am deadly-serious about creating a classroom environment where everyone feels free to ask or speak about anything she wishes. So any student who groans, smirks, mimes machines-gunning or onanism, chortles, eye-rolls, or in any way ridicules some other student's in-class question/comment will be warned once in private and on the second offense will be kicked out of class and flunked, no matter what week it is. If the offender is male, I am also apt to find him off-campus and beat him up.”
For his full syllabus (it’s honestly a great read): http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases/2010/dfw/teaching/
He had his office at 8b. Stevenson Hall 420C, and taught in 8c. Stevenson Hall 410.
And as Wallace became more famous, other English faculty started teaching his work.
Wallace left ISU in 2002 for Pomona College in Claremont, California. His work continued to be taught and his books continued to be studied and examined.
After his death, Professors Harris and Frenkel Harris established the David Foster Wallace Memorial Restricted Fund in Wallace’s memory, established to help support a creative writing scholarship. There is also an annual David Foster Wallace Conference held by ISU’s department of English that started in May, 2014.
Suicide
David’s lifelong battle with depression ended September 12, 2008 when he hanged himself in his garage. He was 46 years old. His unfinished novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011.
Movie
“The End of the Tour” is a drama based on David Foster Wallace’s interview with David Lipsky in Wallace’s home on the outskirts of Bloomington-Normal. Jason Segel plays Wallace while Jesse Eisenberg plays Lipsky. It was released in July 2015, and received universal praise. Here’s the trailer: variety.com/2015/film/news/jason-segal-david-foster-wallace-end-of-the-tour-trailer-video-1201506226/
Sources
Biography.com Editors. "David Foster Wallace Biography." Biography.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 24 October 2015.
Copeland, Laura. "What was it like to take an English class taught by David Foster Wallace?" Quora.com. Quora, 5 February 2015. Web. 24 October 2015.
"David Foster Wallace." Famousauthors.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 October 2015.
Hatch, Rachel. "Professors recall David Foster Wallace’s Illinois State days." Illinoisstate.edu. Illinois State, 9 April 2014. Web. 24 October 2015.
