Exclusive: New Fan-Designed Cover of 20th Anniversary Edition of ‘Infinite Jest’ Plus a Brief Interview with Michael Pietsch

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December 23, 2015 | 4 books mentioned 10 2 min read

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February 23rd marks the 20th anniversary of the original publication of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, and on that date, his publisher Little, Brown is putting out a new edition of the now classic novel with a new introduction by Tom Bissell. To recognize, as Little, Brown put it, ” the deep way that so many readers have connected with the book over the last twenty years,” the publisher held a contest allowing fans to submit their designs for the new cover.

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The winner, we can reveal, is Ohio-based designer Joe Walsh, who has dispensed with the sky imagery that has adorned all prior U.S. editions of Infinite Jest. Walsh’s cover is spare and employs symbolic imagery with a playful undertone. After seeing the cover, we reached out to Michael Pietsch, CEO of Little, Brown parent Hachette Book Group, and David Foster Wallace’s editor, to get his thoughts.

The Millions: Beyond the commercial considerations, why is now the right moment to issue a new edition of Infinite Jest and what does the book have to say to today’s readers?

Michael Pietsch: I’m astonished that ten years have passed since our 10th anniversary edition with a foreword by Dave Eggers. It’s the publisher’s job to find ways to keep books fresh, and an anniversary like this seemed an unmissable occasion to highlight how alive the book still is. Infinite Jest is embraced and discussed by ever larger numbers of readers with each passing year. This new edition is a celebration of that vitality and an invitation to those who haven’t yet turned the first page.

The book’s main ideas—that too much easy pleasure may poison the soul, that we’re awash in an ocean of pain, and that truly knowing another person is the hardest and most worthwhile work in the world—are truer now than they’ve ever been. Tom Bissell’s brilliant new Foreword calls attention to this far better than I can.

TM: Why did Little, Brown decide to go with a fan-designed cover and what would David have made of that decision?

MP: The internet has made it possible to see the massive amount of creative response readers have to Infinite Jest. I’d seen a lot of art connected to the book online, and it seemed that allowing readers who have loved it to submit cover designs for the anniversary edition was a way of honoring and highlighting all that creativity.

I never presume to comment on what David would have made of this or any other aspect of our work. The David Foster Wallace Literary Trust wholeheartedly supported the idea of inviting fans to submit cover art.

coverTM: What did David think of the covers and packaging of his books?

MP: David sometimes made suggestions for cover art. For Infinite Jest he proposed using a photo of a giant modern sculpture made of industrial trash—an interesting idea, but one that our creative director felt was too subtle and detailed to work as a cover image. The cover image for the paperback of A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is one he suggested, and that I’ve always loved.

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Imani Josey Wants to Tell Black Girls’ Stories

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August 9, 2017 | 4 books mentioned 3 min read

Back in 1996, Imani Josey wrote a 60-page draft of a story she called “The Secret Cave,” about three girls who travel to an alternate universe and discover they are fairie princesses. Josey now cites this the first draft of The Blazing Star, a young adult fantasy novel about three black girls who time-travel to ancient Egypt that she self-published last fall.

For years after that draft, though, Josey didn’t write publicly. She was busy being a student and a beauty queen—she was crowned both Miss Chicago and Miss Black Illinois USA—as well as a dancer. She still wrote, keeping journals, penning stories for her friends, and composing fan fiction that, she says will “never see the light of day.”

She did her writing privately until, around 2011, she felt ready to dive back in. The story on her mind? That same one from 1996, the one that had stuck with her through all the years and would blossom into her debut novel in 2016.

Josey has written before about the importance of black girl magic, and her novel features three black female protagonists, which, in 2017, is still unusual, even while books featuring black girls and women continue to prove themselves in the marketplace (Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, for example, has been on The New York Times bestseller list for 21 weeks now). Josey felt passionately that her girls’ stories deserved to be told. “It’s important to tell black girls’ stories with agency because it normalizes blackness,” she says. “These stories ensure we’re not ‘othered.’” She added that her parents surrounded her, in childhood, with images of black girls being normal, through dolls and books with black protagonists.

“These images showed me that I could be a well-rounded, complex person with likes and dislikes and experiences that matter like anyone else’s, and who knew her black skin was beautiful just the way it was,” she said. “It was my parents’ mission to ground my normalcy in my agency, not in my proximity to whiteness.”

So, in her book, Josey gives her girls agency.

The Blazing Star is the first book in a projected trilogy, with each book written from the point of view of one of the main characters. The Falling Star, its sequel, will be released in February 2018.

The book is published by Wise Ink, an self-publishing company. Josey said she originally tried to go the traditional publishing route, but was rejected by countless agents. Nonetheless, she believed in her story, her characters, and her mission, and says her confidence paid off: the book sold out on release day.

“I was hell-bent on my book series doing what traditional pub is dragging its feet to do—fixing the representation gap—a major component of why I went indie,” she said. “I’m not sure how many other black girls are on the cover of YA fantasy book series, and I’m not sure how many lead their own stories as protagonists. But judging by Lee & Low’s annual research, the number is incredibly low.”

In fact, Lee & Low wrote a blog post in March of this year revealing that, while the number of protagonists of color is increasing, the number of authors of color is not: last year, “Black, Latinx, and Native authors combined wrote just 6% of new children’s books published,” the post reports.

Josey gave a bit of advice for white allies who wish to support the work of black creators: make use of their privilege to ensure black writers get their voices heard: “It means being vocal advocates, suggesting marginalized authors for mainstream events, giving their books as gifts and signal boosting crowdfunding projects,” she said, “as well as supporting marginalized traditional and independent authors.”

Josey said she loves that self-publishing allowed her the “freedom to make [the book] exactly how I wanted,” but adds that the self-publishing road is hard. She said it’s been a struggle, especially when it comes to marketing and large-scale distribution.

But she considers herself a fighter, a tough person, traits she partially attributes to her pageant history. “Pageants made me tougher,” she said. “[They] taught me about scrutiny and rejection…They taught me about marketing. They taught me about chasing big dreams, even when you don’t know if everything will turn out alright.”

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| 4 books mentioned 3 min read
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The Bestseller List: Bastion of the Middle Aged

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May 14, 2005 | 4 books mentioned

Lulu, a self-publishing outfit, went back through 50 years of New York Times fiction bestseller lists and determined that the average age of the bestselling author is 50 and a half (via BBC). It makes sense in that the upper reaches of that list are often dominated by franchise-type writers – Stephen King and Danielle Steel are cited – whose careers plateau at a point where every book they write goes to number one, no matter the quality. A younger writer with few books under his or her belt has no reputation to ride on, but the middle-aged writer can ride on reputation to year after year of number ones. But NYT bestsellers are kind of a bore, I’d be more curious about the average ages of the winners of different prizes. Regardless, it almost goes without saying that the most exciting voices in fiction are younger than 50, except for the ones who aren’t.

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Call Me Twitterer: Literary Twitter’s First Tweets

Notable Articles Quick Hits The Future of the Book
November 11, 2013 | 4 books mentioned 5 5 min read

Twitter had its big moment last week, but unlike so many other technology start-ups in the seeming parade of millionaire-makers over the last two decades (with the obvious exception of Amazon.com), Twitter has developed a special following in the literary community, from high-brow to low. Perhaps that’s not surprising. Writers revel in words, and Twitter, nearly alone among hot technology start-ups, is mostly about words, crafting them to meet the medium’s peculiar restraints and sending them out into the world to be engaged with or ignored. Twitter is like some atomized version of the writer’s process. With Twitter, ideas go out piecemeal, the whole process taking a millionth the amount of time it would if you were to glom all those ideas together into one big whole and turn it into something as unlikely-seeming by comparison as a book. This speed, then, may be deeply satisfying — even addictive — as writers bypass so much of the toil of getting a book out of their brains and off to readers (New York’s Kathryn Schulz elaborated smartly on this idea last week.)

There is no uniform stance on Twitter in the literary community, of course. Some, like Teju Cole and Colson Whitehead, find it vital; many others — led by a certain one-time Time coverboy from the Midwest, do not. Some writers have more prosaic feelings about Twitter. Novelist Peter Orner wrote, “Some are talented at it; others, less so.”

Zadie Smith is not on Twitter. Nor are Jeffrey Eugenides (though his vest once was), Michael Chabon (not really, though his writer wife Ayelet Waldman is), George Saunders, or David Mitchell. Jennifer Egan is, but just a little bit.

Nonetheless, Twitter appears to be here to stay, for a while anyway. And it will remain a pastime for writers looking for book news, inspiration, distraction, literary puns, and every other thing they might want. But it wasn’t always that way. In the not too distant past, the literary lights of Twitter pecked out their first 140 characters and waited to see what Twitter would bring.

Curious, I dug back into the Twitter archive to see how these writers took their first steps into Twitter. What follows are the very first tweets of some of Twitter’s well-known practitioners from the literary world.
Finishing the website entries for my fall novel The Year of the Flood.

— Margaret E. Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) July 8, 2009
 
How does a petty trader come by N30 million worth of cars? Police hope Israel Ubatuegwu, of Ajah, has a good explanation.

— Teju Cole (@tejucole) June 7, 2011
 
@R_Nash proud to be a part of ennui 2.0

— colson whitehead (@colsonwhitehead) March 15, 2009
 
Preparing for Book Expo America in the office in Dumbo. The last time we’ve to schlap boxes ourselves. Next year we pay the Teamsters…

— Richard Nash (@R_Nash) May 30, 2007
 
Last night at the Norman Mailer Award Ceremony in NYC, Oliver Stone said beautifully: “A serious writer is a rebel.”

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) October 5, 2012
 
trying to figure out if someone does a decent MP3 workout, which will magically transform my iphone and my body at the same time.

— Ayelet Waldman (@ayeletw) January 27, 2009
 
@JaneGreen I talked to Rufus just this morning…ok, I interviewed him for T+L

— Dani Shapiro (@danijshapiro) April 24, 2009
 
Slaughtered by Sam A. and Jefffery Y. at post-diner breakfast ping-pong. Licking wounds.

— Dwight Garner (@DwightGarner) February 13, 2009
 
Here’s a video of my speech at the NBCC in NYC last week: http://tinyurl.com/dfe8rt

— Ron Charles (@RonCharles) March 17, 2009
 
Testing…

— Sarah Weinman (@sarahw) April 24, 2007
 
reading

— Susan Orlean (@susanorlean) December 23, 2007
 
doesn’t want to be an editor. oops, too late.

— Emma Straub (@emmastraub) December 3, 2008
 
I just opened my present from Dave McKean, The Big Fat Duck Cookbook. Heavy as a stone and beautiful. “See?” he said. “I do read your blog.”

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) December 26, 2008
 
@ShitHomemaker – this is my first tweet and it’s your fault.

— Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) September 15, 2011
 
Fine, then. I’ll twitter.

— John Green (@realjohngreen) December 11, 2008
 
No matter what I do there are always 5 emails in my inbox that I am avoiding.

— Doug Coupland (@DougCoupland) April 1, 2009
 
I’ve reached the limit on how many Facebook friends I can add. So here is a new page.

— Amy Tan (@AmyTan) August 12, 2010
 
http://www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/publishinghouse/books/detail/23

— E L James (@E_L_James) April 12, 2011
 
First Tweet ever, prompted by Jeff Howe’s essay in Sunday’s NYTBR. Velly interesting. Helloooooo?

— Erik Larson (@exlarson) May 22, 2012
 
Does anyone know who @BretEastonEllis is?

— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) April 10, 2009
 
@erlson You just got me to join Twitter.

— William Gibson (@GreatDismal) April 1, 2009
 
coveting Susan Lewis’ hair.

— Jennifer Weiner (@jenniferweiner) April 3, 2009
 
@chuckpalahniuk This is Dennis, webmaster at ChuckPalahniuk.net. Please contact me via my site email address. Thanks!

— Chuck Palahniuk (@chuckpalahniuk) January 28, 2009
 
Becoming far more wired than I probably really need to be.

— Joe Hill (@joe_hill) January 4, 2009
 
hi, i’m gary shteyngart, a furry 39-year-old immigrant man trapped in a young dachshund’s body. LOVE ME!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/RgLBxjYO

— Gary Shteyngart (@Shteyngart) December 1, 2011
 
I’m going to do it right this time.

— Emily Gould (@EmilyGould) May 21, 2009
 
today felt like the unabomber but i wasn’t plotting anything or planning anything or trying to bomb anything and i was wearing 4-inch heels

— Kate Zambreno (@daughteroffury) June 29, 2012
 
Wessex Man http://tinyurl.com/yw93xb

— New York Times Books (@nytimesbooks) March 18, 2007
 
News: Netherland wins PEN/Faulkner award: It was overlooked for the Booker prize and the prestigious US Nat.. http://bit.ly/AufPL

— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) February 26, 2009
 
Podcasting: http://tinyurl.com/6hc9z4

— NY Review of Books (@nybooks) July 2, 2008
 
Check out our feature on the best audiobooks coming this spring.

— Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) January 31, 2009
 
Mario Bros. meets Macbeth: What do a pixelated plumber and a murderous king have in common? Nintendo DS — in En.. http://tinyurl.com/5gr5m4

— L.A. Times Books (@latimesbooks) December 10, 2008
 
Hello, world! Official Library of Congress Twitter feed here. So nice to see 215 followers before so much as a single tweet!

— Library of Congress (@librarycongress) January 27, 2009
 
Welcome to the new GalleyCat Twitter feed, regularly collecting tweets from Senior Editor Ron Hogan, Editor Jason Boog, and Jeff Rivera.

— GalleyCat (@GalleyCat) August 26, 2009
 
Welcome to @nprbooks! We’ll use to to share our book coverage and hopefully talk about some good books, too. / @acarvin

— NPR Books (@nprbooks) January 8, 2010
 
We noticed lots of sites use Twitter for feedback. We created this account as a placeholder, but please visit our Feedback Group anytime!

— goodreads (@goodreads) August 19, 2008
 
56 years after William Styron warned us about chasing the zeitgeist, The Paris Review is now on twitter. From issue 1: http://bit.ly/BCnnE

— The Paris Review (@parisreview) September 4, 2009
 
Culling together work for Electric Literature no.2, planning events for October, spinning splendidly through another day at the office.

— Electric Literature (@ElectricLit) August 31, 2009
 

Rick Moody on running out of luck: http://tinyurl.com/ckno8d

— The Rumpus (@The_Rumpus) January 29, 2009
 

What will be named top book of the decade? http://bit.ly/AMgq8 What’s your pick?

— The Millions (@The_Millions) September 21, 2009
 

What’s the best part of B.G.’s “Bling Bling” video? Pre-tattoo’d Wayne, zooming red VW Beetles, or the crew’s outdoor fine china picnic?

— Nick Moran (@nemoran3) February 2, 2011
 

Notable Articles Quick Hits The Future of the Book
| 4 books mentioned 5 5 min read
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10 comments:

  1. That’s the best they could do? Didn’t try very hard, now did they. Same people that work in pub. marketing must be the same people that work in film marketing. No imagination, no sense of composition, no sense of communication. Nothing. That’s what this cover signifies. Nada.

  2. Horribly poor choice. Infinite Jest isn’t 1984. It’s nothing like it. The problem with the cloud cover was that it gave no indication of what the book was actually about. Here we have the same issue. With the wide variety of covers released to the internet beforehand that were clearly better than this, I’m struggling to comprehend the choice.

  4. Keith, until your post I didn’t realize that I’d seen the ‘winning cover’. I skimmed over it, missed or ignored it.

    I scrolled back and you’re right. It’s unrelated.

  5. i love it.
    “…certain oblique visual gestures…paid the sort-of deep insider’s elegiac tribute no audience could be expected to notice.”

    worthy of Viney & Veals.
    Fully-Functional.

  6. actually
    the image
    reminds me of vonnegut’s bits
    and dave was a pen doodler himself
    as for whether
    or not the lad
    would have liked the choice
    who gnows?
    but he
    probably
    would have loved the audience participation
    having heard him admire
    the free sense of community the Grateful Dead
    permitted to arise around their tours in the 80s
    he readily praised the creativity of those around him
    his students
    his friends
    whatever the sources of its inspiration
    so this old pal of his believes the process would have pleased him
    as well as the fact that he’d achieved his aim
    by leaving you this lush labyrinth of literature
    a hyper articulated artifact
    w/ actual insights
    well worth its
    acclaim

    winter well
    y’all

  7. though KV’s asterisks had
    panache, the je
    ne sais quoi of
    squiggly sphinxes, this
    cover art’s far
    more bar stamp ink
    than badass
    doodle i think: dinky signet’s
    capstone hot
    pink crayon mason’s
    lidless wink or
    blink; rinky
    dink! “well why not
    instead a KV-crude
    enigma-grin with
    infinity’s glyph for its
    Vonnegutish
    lip-wig on a tennis ball
    head?” (imagine
    chip kidd)
    (sed)

  8. Fanboy alert: This is too comical/illustrative. I wish they’d stop trying to highlight ‘funny’ and ‘comedic’ and ‘screwball’. Sure, it has parts that are humorous and parts that make you laugh but If you watch/read any of the interviews with Wallace from around the time of publication he explicitly states that he set out to write a sad book/found the book sad/didn’t understand why people thought it was funny to the degree that they did.

    People can interpret a work however they please but it just seems like in the beginning they didn’t even know how to market it so they just stuck some clouds and bright, big font everywhere. Now they’ve seemingly taken a step toward selling it as a ‘zany’ romp through a television sitcom with a logo cut and pasted from a Keith Haring doodle.

  9. @Mark: in utter agreement am I.

    “People can interpret a work however they please but it just seems like in the beginning they didn’t even know how to market it so they just stuck some clouds and bright, big font everywhere.”

    Yes. This. Pynchon was lucky his “Gravity’s Rainbow” first came out when it did…

  10. WANT TO KNOW THE REAL STORY?

    I WON THIS CONTEST.
    (When I came up with a very clever design of using the earth as a tennis ball I knew I had to win, if it was based on merit. So i entered using a pen name.)

    I can show you the emails (etc) that I WON.

    The next day, after they found out my REAL identity, they disqualified me (b/c i’m an infamous Snowden-type in NYC, blacklisted for exposing corporate corruption and more).

    !!!

    I was shocked to see my replacement was extremely wan.

    [email protected]

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