A quick heads up: The March 7 edition of The New Yorker magazine features a previously unpublished story by David Foster Wallace, the celebrated American author who committed suicide back in 2008. The story, “Backbone,” begins:
Every whole person has ambitions, objectives, initiatives, goals. This one particular boy’s goal was to be able to press his lips to every square inch of his own body.
His arms to the shoulders and most of his legs beneath the knee were child’s play. After these areas of his body, however, the difficulty increased with the abruptness of a coastal shelf. The boy came to understand that unimaginable challenges lay ahead of him. He was six.
The full story appears on The New Yorker website. And perhaps it will whet your appetite for a bigger literary event. On April 15th, Wallace’s final (and still not quite complete) novel, ‘The Pale King’, will be published. You can already reserve your copy on Amazon here. Thanks to @sheerly for the tip…
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