Ordinary Unhappiness

Jon Baskin is the Associate Director of the Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program at the New School for Social Research and a founding editor of The Point.

• Introduction: Habits of Mind1. Narrative Morality: On Philosophically Therapeutic Criticism2. Playing Games: Infinite Jest as Philosophical Therapy3. So Decide: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men as Philosophical Criticism4. Untrendy Problems: The Pale King's Philosophical InspirationsConclusion: In Heaven and Earth

"This is an original, fearless reading of Wallace that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to my students. Even if they disagreed with it, it would get them thinking—and I bet they'd learn something, as I did. Baskin's readings are persuasive, bold, enterprising, and unafraid of disrupting conventional academic hermeneutics. We need books like this."—James Wood, Harvard University "Since his death a decade ago, a lot of smart writing on David Foster Wallace has appeared in print. This insightful new book is among the smartest. Ordinary Unhappiness is a luminous model of how philosophers and literary critics might together help us see ourselves and our situation more clearly."—Lee Konstantinou, University of Maryland, College Park "Baskin's book isrelevant and insightful to all readers of Wallace, both literary critics and laypeople, but the book is also relevant for students of philosophy with an interest in philosophical or literary therapy as something other than psychological therapy. I highly recommend this book."—Finn Janning, Metapsychology