David Foster Wallace is to contemporary literature what Kurt Cobain is to music. He died young enough for his promise and his achievements to solidify into a legend. For many, he became someone worth reading, revering, following.

How had a teen tennis prodigy turned ace philosophy student turned novelist managed to become a generation-defining star? And how painful was that process for him? What was it that he stood for that chimed with so many? And how much did his, and his country's, addictions defeat him? D. T. Max was determined to find out, and this scrupulous and revealing biographical study, which draws on conversations with those closest to Wallace and on extensive archive material, is the haunting result.