David Foster Wallace and 20 years of Infinite Jest

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TL;DR

A Ransom Center Magazine anniversary piece by Megan Barnard, the Ransom Center's Associate Director for Administration and Curatorial Affairs (same day as Sinykin's fellow's essay, for the novel's twentieth), walking through the archive's Infinite Jest publication record — eight boxes of drafts, the Pietsch editorial letters, the DeLillo correspondence, and Bonnie Nadell's advocacy file. Its headline contribution is a draft-margin transcription in which Wallace diagnoses his own characters: "Jim had a hole in his soul... Why his suicide? He can't survive success at film, much less perfection." — and Avril as a "Mother uncaring of anything besides her view of herself as good mother" — the most direct authorial statements the archive holds on J.O.I.'s suicide motive and on Avril's character, straight from the working pages.

Key claims

The publication frame: Little, Brown published the 1,000-plus-page novel in February 1996 at the "unorthodox" price of $30; "Wallace began seriously writing Infinite Jest in 1991." The drafts, handwritten and typed, "fill eight archival document boxes."
The margin notes on the Incandenza parents (from a draft page, quoted by Barnard): of Jim — "Jim had a hole in his soul... Why his suicide? He can't survive success at film, much less perfection." Of Avril — "Mother uncaring of anything besides her view of herself as good mother... Uncaring. Jim cares, but is so locked inside himself he cannot show it, except obliquely, as over abstract art."
Pietsch's length concern, letter of June 10, 1993: "This should not be a $30 novel so thick readers feel they have to clear their calendars for a month before they can buy it" — and, in a later letter, "publishing this novel has probably been the most satisfying and exciting work I've ever gotten to do."
The DeLillo correspondence: Wallace shared an early draft with DeLillo (a mutual friend reported the manuscript "made an explosive sound when it landed on DeLillo's front stoop"); in a letter of October 10, 1995: "I think IJ is less self-indulgent and show-offy than anything I'd done before it... I think my fiction is better than it was, but writing is also less Fun than it was. I have a lot of dread and terror and inadequacy-shit, now, when I'm trying to write."
The hype anxiety, to Pietsch (letter of Sept. 20, 1995), pushing back on Little, Brown's pre-publication masterpiece billing: "I'm 33 years old; I don't have a `masterpiece.'" — and on the touted literary event of '96: "What if it isn't? What if nobody buys it? I'm getting ready, inside, for that possibility; but are you guys?"
Nadell's advocacy, letter to Little, Brown of November 3, 1995, opposing a "hip, downtown" club launch party: "David's novel is not a hip, downtown kind of book. It is, we hope and believe, a major literary novel."
The archive's breadth: the papers of Wallace, DeLillo, Little, Brown, and Nadell are all at the Ransom Center; the 2016 anniversary edition carried a fan-designed cover chosen by open contest.

Theories & evidence

THEORY: J.O.I. killed himself because he could not survive success — a hole in the soul that film success, let alone perfection, could not fill

Crux: joi-suicide-motive
Stance: advances
Evidence:
- [draft] Wallace's own margin note on a draft page: "Jim had a hole in his soul... Why his suicide? He can't survive success at film, much less perfection." [¶ "Forming the foundation…"]
Notes: Authorial working-note, not published text — the note answers "Why his suicide?" in Wallace's own hand, making it the strongest [draft]-grade motive statement on record for this crux. Caveats: it is Barnard's transcription (ellipsis hers or the page's, undetermined); working notes describe intent at one draft moment, not necessarily the finished book's logic ("perfection" resonates with the Entertainment as the perfect film). Bears adjacently on the question of how J.O.I. died (the note assumes suicide, not murder) and on the wraith-motive sub-question.

THEORY: Avril is designed as an uncaring mother — caring only for her own image as a good mother — against a Jim who cares but cannot show it

Crux: avril-devouring-mother
Stance: advances
Evidence:
- [draft] The same margin note, on Avril: "Mother uncaring of anything besides her view of herself as good mother... Uncaring. Jim cares, but is so locked inside himself he cannot show it, except obliquely, as over abstract art." [¶ "Forming the foundation…"]
Notes: Design-intent evidence for the cold-underneath reading of Avril (and, in the same breath, for the locked-in-himself J.O.I. of the communication-and-solipsism readings). Same transcription caveats as above. Note the contrast with Bustillos's biographical route to the same characterization (the Alice Miller marginalia) — two independent archive windows onto the Avril design; this one is compositional, not biographical.

THEORY: The book's length was an editorial battleground — Pietsch pushed against the $30 doorstop

Crux: ij-cuts
Stance: endorses
Evidence:
- [draft] Pietsch to Wallace, June 10, 1993: "This should not be a $30 novel so thick readers feel they have to clear their calendars for a month before they can buy it." [¶ "While working on the novel…"]
Notes: Corroborates the cuts record (the archive holds the fuller Pietsch-memo evidence elsewhere); dated to mid-composition (1993), before the final trimming rounds. The $30 price the letter resists is the price the published book carried — the length fight was partly lost.

THEORY: DeLillo was a working influence and correspondent through the novel's composition

Crux: delillo-influence
Stance: endorses
Evidence:
- [draft] Wallace shared an early draft with DeLillo and "corresponded regularly during this period"; the Oct. 10, 1995 letter self-assesses the novel ("less self-indulgent and show-offy than anything I'd done before it") and confesses the dread ("dread and terror and inadequacy-shit"). [¶ "Wallace also shared an early draft…"]
Notes: Relationship-and-correspondence evidence, not textual-influence analysis; the self-assessment and composition-state testimony are the value.

Themes

Composition and editing history (drafts, the Pietsch letters, the length fight); the Incandenza family's design (the parental margin notes); success, hype, and dread (the masterpiece letter); the author-agent-editor support structure; archives as the record of a book's making.

Cross-references

rcmag-sinykin-ij-at-20 — published the same day for the same anniversary; Sinykin argues design, Barnard shows the making-of record. The fan-cover anniversary edition appears in both.
millions-pietsch-2015 — Pietsch's own account of editing the novel; the June 1993 length letter here is the documentary side of that story.
theawl-bustillos-self-help-library — the biographical (Alice Miller marginalia) route to the Avril characterization; this piece gives the compositional margin-note route.
dtmax-2009-the-unfinished and dtmax-every-love-story — the fuller DeLillo-correspondence record (Max quotes the same era of letters).
The article ran with page images of the Oct. 10, 1995 DeLillo letter and the Sept. 20, 1995 Pietsch letter — the visual originals of the letter quotes carried here.
J.O.I.'s suicide and its motive shadow the wraith's hospital conversations with Gately (scene 162) and the filmography's undertow; the margin notes themselves are draft material and map to no single scene.

Notable passages

Wallace's margin note on J.O.I.: "Jim had a hole in his soul... Why his suicide? He can't survive success at film, much less perfection."
On Avril: "Mother uncaring of anything besides her view of herself as good mother... Uncaring. Jim cares, but is so locked inside himself he cannot show it, except obliquely, as over abstract art."
Pietsch, June 1993: "This should not be a $30 novel so thick readers feel they have to clear their calendars for a month before they can buy it."
Wallace to DeLillo, October 1995: "I have a lot of dread and terror and inadequacy-shit, now, when I'm trying to write."
Wallace to Pietsch, September 1995: "I'm 33 years old; I don't have a `masterpiece.'" "What if it isn't? What if nobody buys it?"
Nadell to Little, Brown: "David's novel is not a hip, downtown kind of book."