Back in April of 2006, I had a decidedly awesome experience that I'd hoped to have again: I saw and heard David Foster Wallace speak at Franklin & Marshall College. He read aloud to us a portion about Leonard Syecyk, a most unusual and insufferable do-gooder of a child, chuckling in places as he went. It sounded like the makings of another fantastic novel, and lo, it is.

This is vintage DFW--the footnotes, a long list of characters that we meet in intense ways, but may not hear about again, and his zany, smart humor. This tome is mostly about living through excruciating boredom, and Wallace deftly immerses us into passages of IRS jargon and procedure that are quite challenging. Did my mind wonder? You bet. During one tedious interlude, DFW slipped in the words, every story is a ghost story. One of the little gifts for sticking with him.

Attention, awareness, and discipline: the greatest challenges, and the way to cope with the profound ennui we must all deal wrestle in daily life. Shane Drinion is a fascinating character I'd loved to have read more about.

These characters will be my phantoms for awhile.