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The Broom of the System

by David Foster Wallace

The Broom of the System Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The first novel by David Foster Wallace, author of the national bestseller Infinite Jest, is vibrantly republished.

The mysterious disappearance of her great-grandmother and 25 other elderly inmates from a nursing home has left Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman emotionally stranded on the edge of the Great Ohio Desert. But that is simply one problem of many for the hapless switchboard operator — compounded by her ongoing affair with her boss, the impending TV stardom of her talking cockatiel, and similar small catastrophes that threaten to elevate Lenore's search for love and self-determination to new heights of spasmodic weirdness.

Review:

"Daring, hilarious...a zany picaresque adventure of contemporary America run amok." The New York Times

Review:

"Wonderful...a cathartic experience with lots of laughs and lots of deeper meanings." The Washington Post Book World

Review:

"Dazzling...exhilarating...bizarre...sweepingly successful...engaging and haunting...a remarkable book with a lot of prestidigitation in it....Wallace's talent is consistently impressive." San Francisco Chronicle

Review:

"Wallace makes it all come together as a unified vision of inspired madness. This is Wallace's first novel. God help us all when he gets some practice." Orson Scott Card, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

Synopsis:

The mysterious disappearance of her great-grandmother and 25 other elderly residents of a nursing home only compounds the small catastrophes that threaten to elevate Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman's search for love and self-determination to new heights of spasmodic weirdness.

Synopsis:

Published when Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore's great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.

Synopsis:

Hilarious and wildly inventive, this novel by the author of The Girl With Curious Hair takes off where reality ends, as its protagonist, switchboard operator Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman, is inundated with more than the usual share of unusual problems.

About the Author

David Foster Wallace is the author of Infinite Jest, The Girl with Curious Hair, and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. His nonfiction has appeared in Harper's, Premiere, and Tennis. His stories have been published in The New Yorker, Playboy, Harper's, Paris Review, and Conjunctions. David Foster Wallace has won a Whiting Award, two NEA grants, and a fellowship at Yaddo. He lives in Bloomington, Illinois.

Product Details

ISBN:
9780142002421
Other:
Wallace, David Foster
Publisher:
Penguin Books
Other:
Wallace, David Foster
Author:
Wallace, David Foster
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Children's 12-Up - Fiction - General
Copyright:
Edition Number:
Reprint ed.
Publication Date:
May 25, `2004
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
480
Dimensions:
7.77x5.03x.81 in. .73 lbs.
Age Level:
17-17

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