SOURCE: Norfolk, Lawrence. “Closing Time in the Fun-House.” Times Literary Supplement (14 January 2000): 25-6.

In the following review, Norfolk places Wallace within the tradition of contemporary American authors and views him as one of the few American writers who addresses quintessentially American themes and questions.

The radical problem besetting contemporary American fiction at present is that the United States corresponds almost exactly with its image in popular culture, but not quite. Scrappy fragments of the real United States may fly about the crisp outlines of its televisual simulacrum but, within the mediated frame of our United Kingdom-based perception, such discrepancies are minor disruptions. It is easier to edit them out than act on the suspicions they arouse. The image sharpens and becomes more convincing and, in consequence, the mediated US grows familiar and conventional, more realistic than the Real, its lurid and alluring affects more compelling.

We are, accordingly...