The Pale King

by David Foster Wallace

First published 2011

Welcome to the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois. Here, David Foster Wallace navigates a maze of soul-crushing paperwork, absurd office politics, and the eccentric personalities that inhabit this strange world. As he delves into the banal details of tax law, he grapples with questions of meaning, purpose, and the nature of human existence. This unfinished novel from the late literary giant is a profound meditation on the search for fulfillment in the most unlikely of places.

Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, 21st-century, accounting, academic

Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking

Tropes: existential-crisis, fish-out-of-water

592 pages · Paperback · Back Bay Books

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