On of my fave NP Books features: Children and teens reviewing books for children and teens.
The LARB had a bit of a DFW-athon this weekend, running four essays on the late literary giant. Of these pieces, I’d especially recommend Ben Mauk on essays and miscellanea in general; Mauk puts Wallace and Nicholson Baker in critical conversation, drawing out their links and their departures as essayists and noticers. I’m really taken with this piece, in part because I love Baker in his spotty smallness, in the jouissance of his fascinations, particularly compared with Wallace’s agonized attentiveness.
If you want an East Coast perspective on the DFW canonization project, Elaine Blair’s NYRB review of—ostensibly—D.T. Max’s Every Love Story is A Ghost Story is excellent, especially given the alleged fabulism of Wallace’s best nonfiction pieces. As an added bonus, Blair’s review sidelines with a summary of DFW on the problems of irony, which was in the news last week.
Speaking of posthumous publications, there will be a new David Rakoff novel next summer, and I’m willing to bet that Emily Landau is even more pumped about it than I am.
