Max has described Wallace 's work as an " unusual mixture of the cerebral and the hot-blooded " , often featuring multiple protagonists and spanning different locations in a single work . His writing comments on the fragmentation of thought , the relationship between happiness and boredom , and the psychological tension between the beauty and hideousness of the human body . According to Wallace , " fiction 's about what it is to be a fucking human being " , and he said he wanted to write " morally passionate , passionately moral fiction " that could help the reader " become less alone inside " . In his Kenyon College commencement address , Wallace described the human condition as daily crises and chronic disillusionment and warned against succumbing to solipsism , invoking the existential values of compassion and mindfulness : Wallace covered Senator John McCain 's 2000 presidential campaign and the September 11 attacks for '' Rolling Stone '' ; cruise ships ( in what became the title essay of his first nonfiction book ) , state fairs , and tornadoes for '' Harper 's Magazine '' ; the US Open tournament for '' Tennis '' magazine ; the director David Lynch and the pornography industry for '' Premiere '' magazine ; the tennis player Michael Joyce for '' Esquire '' ; the movie-special-effects industry for '' Waterstone 's '' magazine ; conservative talk radio host John Ziegler for '' The Atlantic '' ; and a Maine lobster festival for '' Gourmet '' magazine . He also reviewed books in several genres for the '' Los Angeles Times '' , '' The Washington Post '' , '' The New York Times '' , and '' The Philadelphia Inquirer '' . In the November 2007 issue of '' The Atlantic '' , which commemorated the magazine 's 150th anniversary , Wallace was among the authors , artists , politicians and others who wrote short pieces on " the future of the American idea "
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
David Foster Wallace