Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Wallace, David Foster - Douglas Siebold (review date 21 January 1990)

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Douglas Siebold (review date 21 January 1990)

SOURCE: "'Maximalist' Short Fiction from a Talented Young Writer," in Chicago Tribune, January 21, 1990, Sec. 14, p. 7.

[The following review highlights Wallace's distinctiveness from his predecessors, "the metafictionists," and his contemporaries, "the minimalists."]

David Foster Wallace is probably the most talented of the writers under 30 who have been forced on the reading public over the past five or so years by publishers excited by the commercial success of such books as Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City and Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero.

Most of the work of these writers has been forgettable, in some cases even regrettable. But if the work of Wallace's contemporaries mostly consists of thin, under-nourished volumes that together form the body of the so-called "minimalist" school of American fiction, his work is resoundingly maximalist.

A 1985...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Kirkus Reviews (review date 15 November 1986)
   2. Madison Smartt Bell (review date 6 August 1989)
   3. Jenifer Levin (review date 5 November 1989)
   4. Douglas Siebold (review date 21 January 1990)
   5. Sven Birkerts (essay date 1992)
   6. Larry McCaffery (interview date Summer 1993)
   7. David Kipen (review date 11 February 1996)
   8. R. Z. Sheppard (review date 19 February 1996)
   9. Jay McInerney (review date 3 March 1996)
   10. Rick Perlstein (review date 4 March 1996)
   11. Steven Moore (review date Spring 1996)
   12. Tom LeClair (essay date Fall 1996)
   13. Richard Stern (review date 9 March 1997)
   14. Laura Miller (review date 16 March 1997)
   15. Alexander Star (review date 30 June 1997)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright