Boston AA's open meetings and walk-in halfway houses are Wallace's stated reason IJ is set in Boston
echoes
From: The Secret History of David Foster Wallace's Boston (BDCwire)
- Real-world: Wallace, 1996: "One of the reasons that it is
set in Boston is that Boston AA is very strange and unique, it’s got a
lot of open meetings which mean you don’t have to be a member to go,
which means I could go and sit and take notes"; and "there’s 9 or 10
halfway house facilities licensed by divisions of substance abuse
services who would more or less let you walk in and lurk." [¶13]
- IJ echo: The Boston AA world entire — White Flag anatomized (scene
074, pp. 343-367); Ennet House and the "exotic new facts" circuit
(scenes 042/054/056).
- Weight: author-stated