A new edition to celebrate the 30th anniversary of David Foster Wallace’s iconic, bestselling novel Infinite Jest – with an introduction by Michelle Zauner, author of Crying in H Mart
‘We will likely not see another book like this in our lifetimes’ Michelle Zauner, bestselling author of Crying in H Mart and frontwoman for Japanese Breakfast
Tennis prodigy Hal Incandenza and recovering addict Don Gately are consumed by the same obsession: their search for the master copy of Infinite Jest, a movie so entertaining that anyone who watches it loses all desire to do anything else …
‘Extraordinary… an astonishing and vast epic of contemporary American culture’ Guardian
‘Ambitious, accomplished, deeply humorous, brilliant and witty and moving. A literary sensation’ Independent
‘An exploding star of a novel’ Spectator
‘A remarkable satire on American entertainment and addiction’ Daily Telegraph
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
One of the best books about addiction and recovery to appear in recent memory... a dystopian fantasy of the near future, a meditation about avant-garde cinema, a burlesque of North American politics and a critique of sports culture... positively sings with lyrical insight and wry humour
From the hilarious to the deliberately infuriating, Infinite Jest packs a considerable range of bawdy, satirical excursions... Wallace's central concerns are powerfully and disturbingly given form in the blurry hinterland where recreation meets slavery
Wallace's theme is addiction: to drugs, to death, to entertainment. His compulsive style mixes erudite and slacker jargon, pseudoscience and urban slang (often in the same sentence) and always in precise detail. Rousing prose breathes on to every page
A remarkable satire on American entertainment and addiction... the book's mixture of maniacal inventiveness and comic brio gradually becomes an addiction itself... Enormously readable and quite ridiculously entertaining... a book of our times
Scenes of gruesome hilarity and some of genuine tragedy... The most relevant portrayal of American culture to appear in recent years, Infinite Jest is fascinating, ridiculous and excruciating, and a stimulating injection into contemporary American culture
Ambitious, accomplished, deeply humorous, brilliant and witty and moving. A literary sensation
Darkly comic
He induces the kind of laughter which, when read in bed with a sleeping partner, wakes said sleeping partner up . . . He's damn good
Infinite Jest seems to fulfil every promise that David Foster Wallace displayed in his precocious and stunning The Broom of the System. If you want to know who's upholding the high comic tradition - passed down from Sterne to Swift to Pynchon - it's Wallace
Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight
Wallace's exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight, and he has deep things to say about the hollowness of contemporary American pleasure... sentences and whole pages are marvels of comic concentration... Wallace is a superb comedian of culture
Massive, unflagging, ingenious, an eccentric portrait of America in decline, a study in addiction, a raucous comedy of manners and mania
Funny, smart and perceptively written
Extraordinary... an astonishing and vast epic of contemporary American culture
A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything
A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything
An insight into modern addictions and spiritual frustrations
An exploding star of a novel... reading the book is itself a sort of addiction... Wallace writes with authority, deep feeling and caustic wit
One of the best books about addiction and recovery to appear in recent memory.
Wallace's prose, ebullient and complex, transmits at once the vitality and absurd decadence of his culture... as an assessment of America, the novel is both powerful and troubling