As a child, Wallace was forceful and imaginative. He frequently made his younger sister play audience to long, ad lib dramas populated by characters like Captain Phlegm and his sidekick Goat Bile. During adolescence, Wallace moved into the basement of the family’s Philo, Illinois home. He painted the walls black and hung cork tiles on one wall. His sister later remembered being very upset by one of the things tacked to the cork wall, a single page from an article on Kafka, whose headline read: “THE DISEASE WAS LIFE ITSELF.”

David Foster Wallace Psychohistory. Read more here.

Collage by Allison Diaz

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