Wallace’s The Pale King is an unhappy novel by an unhappy author who committed suicide before completing it. As is, a picnic, without food or drink, finds Lane A. Dean, Jr. and his girlfriend Sherri, “good people,” middle-American-Christian youth, discussing her pregnancy.
The conversation is emotionally dry and oblique. The word abortion is not spoken. Lane assures Sherri that he will go with her and be there. But Sherri laughs because she knows that Lane does not love her.
Lane knows he’s violating his Christian faith. But it’s too complicated for him to understand his responsibility or guilt. He wishes that “it never happened.” She is serious about her faith and will go forward with her pregnancy. Nothing is resolved. The picnic ends with the two of them sitting frozen on a picnic table in a public park.
Featured Image: Karin Green’s cover design is a collage of a playing card and snippets from the IRS form, reflecting the book’s title and the fact that most of the action occurs in an IRS office.
See David Foster Wallace. The Pale King. New York: Little, Brown, 2011.