Infinite Jest

David Foster Wallace · first published 1996 · ISBN 9780316073851

A sprawling 1,000-plus page novel set in a near-future North America where years are sponsored by corporations and time flows strangely. Multiple narrative threads weave together residents of a prestigious tennis academy, patients recovering from various addictions in a halfway house, and a mysteriously lethal form of entertainment so engaging that people watch it until they die. The text includes hundreds of endnotes that complicate, expand, and sometimes contradict the main narrative.