The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel

The "breathtakingly brilliant" novel by the author of Infinite Jest (New York Times) is a deeply compelling and satisfying story, as hilarious and fearless and original as anything Wallace ever wrote.

The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even what little humanity and dignity the work still has.

The Pale King remained unfinished at the time of David Foster Wallace's death, but it is a deeply compelling and satisfying novel, hilarious and fearless and as original as anything Wallace ever undertook. It grapples directly with ultimate questions -- questions of life's meaning and of the value of work and society -- through characters imagined with the interior force and generosity that were Wallace's unique gifts. Along the way it suggests a new idea of heroism and commands infinite respect for one of the most daring writers of our time.

"The Pale King is by turns funny, shrewd, suspenseful, piercing, smart, terrifying, and rousing." --Laura Miller, Salon

Author: David Foster Wallace
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Published: 04/15/2011
Pages: 560
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.83lbs
Size: 9.45h x 6.40w x 1.68d
ISBN: 9780316074230


Award: Pulitzer Prize - Finalist


Review Citation(s):
Entertainment Weekly 04/01/2011 pg. 79
Kirkus Reviews 04/01/2011
Entertainment Weekly 04/22/2011 pg. 98
New York Times Book Review 04/17/2011 pg. 1
People Weekly 05/02/2011 pg. 51
New York Times Book Review 04/24/2011 pg. 22
New York Review of Books 05/12/2011 pg. 8
Library Journal 11/15/2010 pg. 45
Library Journal Prepub Alert 11/15/2010 pg. 45
Newsweek 11/29/2010 pg. 50
Entertainment Weekly 01/21/2011 pg. 57
Men's Journal 07/01/2011 pg. 80
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/04/2011 pg. 25
LJ Best Books of Year 12/01/2011 pg. 57

About the Author
David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1962 and raised in Illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and English from Amherst College and wrote what would become his first novel, The Broom of the System, as his senior English thesis. He received a masters of fine arts from University of Arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University. His second novel, Infinite Jest, was published in 1996.

Wallace taught creative writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College, and published the story collections Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion, the essay collections A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and Consider the Lobster. He was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers' Award, and was appointed to the Usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He died in 2008. His last novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011.