Roberts argues that it would be unwise to take Wallace at his word when making such claims. He said on more than one occasion that he was “not a journalist” (e.g., Jacob 153, Scocca 22), implying that nonfiction took second place in his career. While such a process is not without precedent, the degree to which Wallace trusts his sentences to lead him from darkness to light is rare, warranting a close look by nonfiction writers and scholars alike.įor much of his writing career, Wallace seemed to give short shrift to his nonfiction, perhaps especially the journalism. By honing them carefully, Wallace finds his way inside the story, understands its structure more deeply, and enables himself to turn an incomplete rough draft into a thoughtful, polished essay. And so this paper will devote most of its attention to the difference between the handwritten draft and first typescript, in particular to changes Wallace makes to his sentences.

Nearly all change takes place between Wallace’s first two drafts. Rolling Stone, for its part, changed very little from this second typescript. Wallace did fairly light editing in the second typescript: just a few word changes and the striking of a paragraph that he restored for Consider the Lobster. Multiple versions of it are on file at HRC, including, in one folder alone, Wallace’s handwritten draft, a largely pristine typescript draft, an edited version of the typescript, and a copy of the article that appeared in Rolling Stone. This essay is interested in the latter, in particular Wallace’s piece on 9/11 for Rolling Stone, “The View from Mrs.

Much scholarship has been devoted to Wallace’s fiction less to his nonfiction. On reserve at the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) at the University of Texas is the archive of David Foster Wallace, which holds various drafts and proofs of the writer’s oeuvre, including both fiction and nonfiction.

Foster Fox by William D. Writer