David Foster Wallace Turns 50

An excerpt from my essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace,” to celebrate what would have been David Foster Wallace’s fiftieth birthday.

“The goosebumps still came, despite having read that passage at least a dozen times before. Wallace had memorized the facts, the numbers; it seemed, however, even within those statistics, that Wallace had also categorized the panic, loss, horror brought on by that historic event. And, within the pages of his essay, Wallace found the words to bring to life, not only the fear, but also the interminable beauty moving, fast and determined, like a Great White shark just below the surface. He was capable, at all times, of noticing the fin breaking through the cresting waves.”