David Foster Wallace's Unfinished Novel

If you're a David Foster Wallace fan, check out the March 9 issue of the New Yorker for a story discussing the novel DFW was working on at the time of his suicide. The unfinished manuscript, titled The Pale King, will be published by Little, Brown early next year. The story is a nice overview of DFW's work and career.

According to Little, Brown, The Pale King is set "at an IRS tax-return processing center in Illinois in the mid 1980s" and is the story of "a crew of entry-level processors, 'wigglers' in IRS jargon (for their similarity to newly hatched tadpoles), and their attempts to do their job in the face of soul-crushing tedium and bureaucratic malevolence. The novel's main character, David Wallace, is newly arrived at this job and learning from all around him amid epic institutional confusion." Apparently, the novel will include notes, outlines, and other non-typical formats.