by osmosis

It's been reported that a long, unfinished novel by the late David Foster Wallace will see the light of day some time next year.  I always assumed there would be some posthumous fiction released after his tragic death, but I never thought it would actually be a long novel.  The book will be called The Pale King, and is about an IRS agent in 1980's Illinois.  The New Yorker has released a few pages of the novel here.

"Lane Dean, Jr., with his green rubber pinkie finger, sat at his Tingle table in his chalk’s row in the rotes group’s wiggle room and did two more returns, then another one, then flexed his buttocks and held to a count of ten and imagined a warm pretty beach with mellow surf, as instructed in orientation the previous month. Then he did two more returns, checked the clock real quick, then two more, then bore down and did three in a row, then flexed and visualized and bore way down and did four without looking up once, except to put the completed files and memos in the two Out trays side by side up in the top tier of trays, where the cart boys could get them when they came by. After just an hour the beach was a winter beach, cold and gray and the dead kelp like the hair of the drowned, and it stayed that way despite all attempts." read more