A review by patrickwreed
Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace by D.T. Max

2.0

I can't think of any other time I've read a biography and come off liking the subject *less* as a result. Max consistently fails to capture anything of the manic style of Wallace, or his sense of irony, instead creating a dull, po-faced account of his college years that make him sound like little more than a petulant, egotistical spoilt brat at worst and terminally dull at best. He discusses the author's depression in terms of "futility" and little else, and the whole thing comes across as a succession of unrelated facts, with nothing in the way of insight or explanation. The choice of quotes from Wallace's work, littered throughout this book, come across as smarmy and self-satisfied out of context.

If I'd never read Wallace's own work, I'd have come away wondering what all the fuss was about, and certainly wouldn't have been compelled to rush out and buy any of it.