Unspeakable Failures of David Foster Wallace

This book examines the writing of David Foster Wallace hailed as the voice of a generation on his death. Critics have identified horror of solipsism obsession with sincerity and a corresponding ambivalence regarding postmodern irony and detailed attention to contemporary culture as the central elements of Wallace's writing. Clare Hayes-Brady draws on the evolving discourses of Wallace studies focusing on the unifying anti-teleology of his writing arguing that that position is a fundamentally political response to the condition of neo-liberal America. <br/><br/>She argues that Wallace's work is most unified by its resistance to closure which pervades the structural narrative and stylistic elements of his writing. Taking a broadly thematic approach to the numerous types of 'failure' or lack of completion visible throughout his work the book offers a framework within which to read Wallace's work as a coherent whole rather than split along the lines of fiction <i>versus </i>non-fiction or pre- and post-<i>Infinite Jest</i> two critical positions that have become dominant over the last five years. While demonstrating the centrality of 'failure' the book also explores Wallace's approach to sincere communication as a recurring response to what he saw as the inane self-absorbed commodification of language and society along with less explored themes such as gender naming and heroism. <br/><br/>Situating Wallace as both a product of his time and an artist<i> sui generis</i> Hayes-Brady details his abiding interest in philosophy language and the struggle for an authentic self in late-twentieth-century America.