First published 1997
Bestselling author David Foster Wallace dissects the modern human condition with surgical precision. In the scathing title essay, he endures the forced "fun" of a luxury cruise, skewering the empty ritual of leisure. Elsewhere, he riffs on everything from professional tennis to the cultural impact of David Lynch. Beneath Wallace's biting wit lies a deep empathy for the cravings and anxieties that shape our lives.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, american, biography-memoir, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: personal-narrative, social-critique
368 pages · Paperback · Little, Brown and Company