A brief preview of the David Foster Wallace collection at the University of Texas Harry Ransom Center ( Newsweek , 11/29) shows that Wallace was not actually the “purely pomo author” that he might seem. The collection contains notes and files for his unfinished and forthcoming Pale King , described as a “novel about IRS agents trying to make moral sense of bureacratized life,” and show that he did extensive research for the novel - taking accounting classes and sending off detailed questions to tax lawyers.

David Foster Wallace - the last of the realists?