My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (Leyner), 155–56
Mystery Train (Marcus), 122
N+1, 288
Nadell, Bonnie, 65–67, 69, 82, 84, 97, 105, 299, 300, 315n
Infinite Jest and, 162, 163, 171, 183, 216, 224
McLean visit of, 136
Sommerville visit of, 125
Wallace’s correspondence with, 65–66, 71, 77, 79, 82, 83, 84, 87, 98, 99, 101, 112, 116–17, 123, 124–25, 127, 128, 132, 136–37, 154, 183, 246, 298
names, 66, 206, 231, 284, 295, 296–97, 320n
Nardil, 52, 114–17, 154, 251, 297, 298, 300, 322n
“Neiman-Marcus Nihilism,” 110
New Republic, 264–65
Newsday, 228–29
New York City, 127, 152
Wallace’s visits to, 67, 76, 83, 97–98, 99, 103, 125, 130, 131–32, 173, 174, 196, 202, 207, 208, 220–25, 279, 290–91
New Yorker, 87, 273, 292–93, 323n
New York Observer, 242–45, 314n
New York Review of Books, 255
New York Times, 82, 132, 217, 254–55, 279
New York Times Book Review, 81–82, 126, 128–29, 217, 229, 254, 265, 276
New York Times Magazine, 168, 220, 221, 222, 290, 299, 323n
nicknames, 27, 52, 320n
Nirvana, 221, 321n–22n
Nogales, 77
nursing homes, 46, 312n
Obama, Barack, 299
Oberlin College, 13–14
Oblivion (Wallace), 78, 276–80, 324n
O’Brien, John, 177, 189, 231
O’Connor, Flannery, 115–16
“Octet” (Wallace), 247
Ohio, 71, 119
Omensetter’s Luck (Gass), 74
“Order and Flux in Northampton” (Wallace), 118, 138, 316n
Ostheimer, Martha, 105, 113
paintings, 314n, 318n
Pale King, The (Wallace), 8, 10, 12, 78, 255–59, 262, 274, 276, 280, 289–97, 298, 301, 312n, 324n–25n
cars in, 33
readings from, 273, 292
writing style and, 320n
“Panic of Influence, The” (Scott), 255
Papineau, David, 276
Paris Review, 95, 101, 112
Parker, Andrew, 38, 56, 100, 104, 247
Patchett, Ann, 127
Penner, Jonathan, 61–65, 72, 313n, 314n
Perkins, Susan, 13, 24, 28, 51, 52, 53, 59, 62, 185, 249
Peterson, Dale, 46, 74–75, 87, 101, 113, 155, 266, 267
Granada House and, 138, 141–42
Wallace’s teaching and, 84, 88, 99–100, 176
Wallace’s thesis and, 43, 48
Phaedo (Plato), 11
philosophy, 1, 11, 25–26, 28, 29, 38–41, 49, 82, 90, 251, 312n, 317n
Wallace’s return to, 119, 126, 127, 132–33, 137
Wallace’s thesis in, 39–41
Wittgenstein and, 32, 44–47, 65
Pietsch, Michael, 171–73, 202, 205–10, 212, 216, 225, 253, 263, 264, 290, 299, 301
Infinite Jest edited by, 182–83, 190, 191, 193–96, 198–200, 205–6, 234
magazine pieces and, 227–28
short stories and, 245, 247–48, 274, 276–77
Placebo Records, 73, 314n
plagiarism, 106, 319n
“Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing, The” (Wallace), 34–38, 41, 311n, 312n
Plato, 11
Playboy, 87, 96, 106–7, 125, 128, 245
Poag, Doug, 220, 248–49, 252
Poag, Erin, 220, 248–49
poetry, 58, 74, 150, 257, 317n
of Berkeley, 91, 314n
of Dickinson, 15, 152
of Eliot, 38, 58
of Keats, 234–35
of Wallace, 3, 4, 5, 23, 74
politics, 21, 25, 212, 259–60, 295–96, 299, 313n
Pomona College, 266–71, 273, 274, 296
pornography, 29, 123–28, 133, 142, 184, 257, 261, 316n, 318n, 323n
awards ceremony and, 244–45, 323n
postmodern literature, 29–31, 47, 60, 62, 65, 66, 71, 89, 91, 94, 95–96, 107, 111, 115, 126, 135, 156, 157, 159, 191, 212, 217, 231, 255, 315n, 318n
see also Barth, John; Barthelme, Donald; Pynchon, Thomas
Premiere, 244–45, 323n
psychiatry, 114, 116, 136, 300
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (Bangs), 122
Publishers Weekly, 216, 253
Puente, Tito, 153
Purple America (Moody), 213
Pynchon, Thomas, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 43, 53, 56, 60, 67, 76, 85, 105, 156, 192, 213–14, 225, 316n
Broom and, 47, 48, 60, 66, 69, 70, 77, 80, 82, 312n
Vollmann and, 130, 316n
Wallace’s disappointment with, 152
waste in, 313n
Rabbit at Rest (Updike), 184
“Rabbit Resurrected” (Wallace), 184
Ragde, Prabhakar, 276
Rainbow Stories, The (Vollmann), 130, 213, 316n
Rawls, John, 119, 133
reading, physics of, 69–70, 182
Reagan, Ronald, 212, 221, 256, 259, 313n
realism, 38, 39, 50, 60, 61, 84, 92, 101, 115, 153, 212–13, 231, 314n
religion, 114, 140, 164, 166, 181, 251, 257, 316n