From The LA Times
By Meghan Daum

On Sept. 12, the writer David Foster Wallace, who was 46, died by hanging himself in his Claremont home. A formidable intellect and a virtuosic craftsman whose following seemed cult-like despite being too large to really qualify (several of his books were bestsellers), Wallace had been a professor of creative writing at Pomona College since 2001.

Though he is best known for his 1,096-page novel, “Infinite Jest,” it’s his nonfiction that, for me, has always been the most reliable source of awe and pleasure. So when the news came of his death, I absorbed my shock stretched out on the couch reading cover to cover a fairly well-known Wallace work that deserves to be extremely well-known: his chronicle of seven days on the campaign trail during John McCain’s 2000 presidential bid.

Replete with the author’s trademark digressions, unstuffy erudition and generous footnoting, the essay is classic Wallace in that it mixes complex inquiry with basic humanity. A populist with an elitist’s vocabulary and a slacker’s persona, Wallace talked to readers as though we were old friends from grad school crashing at his place; he made us feel at home as long as we’d think things through with him.

There has never been a better time to read Wallace on McCain, and not just because McCain is poised to grab the reins of the same world from which Wallace just arranged his own exit. It will make your heart break for just about anyone who runs for president in an Infotainment Age election. Then it will make your heart break for anyone who votes in one.

Originally published in April 2000 in Rolling Stone, the writer’s cut later appeared in a 2005 collection and was released in June of this year as a book called “McCain’s Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope.”

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