Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace
Summary
Set largely at a Boston area tennis academy and a nearby halfway house, the sprawling novel follows dozens of characters entangled with a mysterious film so entertaining that anyone who watches it loses all desire to do anything else ever again. Wallace combines dense philosophical digression, addiction narrative, and satire of American entertainment culture into a nearly eleven hundred page structure loaded with hundreds of footnotes. The novel became one of the most influential and discussed American novels of the late twentieth century despite, or perhaps because of, its daunting scale.
Historical Context & Significance
The 1996 National Book Award for fiction went to Andrea Barrett's story collection Ship Fever instead, beating out several more heavily hyped finalists that year. Wallace's novel nonetheless became a defining text for a generation of readers and writers who found the mainstream prize circuit too narrow for its ambitions.