ELSEWHERE: A Beginner’s Guide to David Foster Wallace

Today marks the five-year anniversary of the death of David Foster Wallace, an author whose hyper self-aware prose style has helped shape the contemporary American literary scene. Reading Wallace can be daunting—particularly his dense and often heavily-footnoted fiction, the last iteration of which we reviewed here—but making the effort is apt to pay back dividends. If you’re standing on the lip of the pool, unsure of whether to dive in the deep end or step lightly into the shallows, let Cult of Clair guide you. Over there you’ll find a perfect beginner’s guide to DFW that highlights his nonfiction essays as a great place to begin your experience.