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.”

“Finally got a moment to read [Danny Goodman’s] DFW piece in Specter Literary Magazine. It is great and there are footnotes.”

Sarah Flynn, via Twitter, saying one of the kindest things a person could say about my nonfiction piece

My nonfiction essay, "Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace," published in the new issue of Specter Literary Magazine

I wrote a nonfiction piece about tennis, sharks, and David Foster Wallace. Specter Literary Magazine, one of my favorite literary journals, who got a sweet shout-out in a recent The Millions article, was kind enough to publish it. 

I’d love for you to read it. Then, if you really like it, maybe you could share it. That would be delightful.

“Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace,” published in Specter Literary Magazine

(An early version of this essay was the recipient of the 2009 Samuel Mockbee Award in Nonfiction.)

Book Review: 'Other People We Married' by Emma Straub

Originally published in Specter Literary Magazine, my review of Emma Straub’s Other People We Married, re-released this week by Riverhead Books.

Other People We Married showcases twelve finely-tuned stories, some with linked characters, others standalone. Many—most notably Laura and Stephen from the aforementioned “Puttanesca”—are battling the collision of external and internal friction, but it is Straub’s use of genuineness and humor to cut the suffocating tension of these characters’ lives that really makes them stick to the reader’s bones. From young Greta in “Abraham’s Enchanted Forest” to Sophie in the novella-length “Fly-Over State” (originally published by FlatmanCrooked), Straub’s characters long for the search, the finding, the Wanderlust of daily existence.

(Straub will read from the collection on March 8, 2012, at Upstairs at the Square.)

“That was [David Foster] Wallace, wrapped up in the tightest package possible: a force of elegant nature, a disobeyer, a leader rather than follower, a writer capable of impressing his will upon a reader and leaving a body-shaped indentation, like in cartoons.”

from my nonfiction essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace,” published in the new issue of Specter Literary Magazine

A “Double-Dose of DG” Wednesday

Two fun things I hope you both dig and share. Remember, you rock:

√ My nonfiction essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace,” published in the new issue of Specter Literary Magazine

√ Art Faccia editor J.E. Reich asked me some questions, and it was a damn good time: “Rocking Waffles with Danny Goodman,” published in Art Faccia

“To begin the class, I handed out a copy of the New York Times obituary, written on September 15, three days after Wallace’s death. The class, seemingly as a whole, had the wind knocked out of them. They didn’t know, not one of them, that Wallace had passed away. One young man looked up at me and said, “How? This guy can’t be dead. He’s incredible.” I nodded and grinned. Both statements were true.”

In Issue Six of Specter Magazine, “Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace” by Danny Goodman

(via spectercollective)

Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace, published in Specter Literary Magazine (Photo courtesy of The New York Times) High-res

Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace, published in Specter Literary Magazine


(Photo courtesy of The New York Times)

My nonfiction essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles,” about sharks, tennis, writing, and David Foster Wallace, forthcoming in Specter Literary Magazine.  High-res

My nonfiction essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles,” about sharks, tennis, writing, and David Foster Wallace, forthcoming in Specter Literary Magazine.