All This Inside

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”
— David Foster Wallace

Except it’s so much more than just words. Because that’s the thing about David Foster Wallace’s work… It’s exhausting and it’s exhilarating and it’s dazzling and it’s deep, but ultimately it does a really simple thing. To read him is to be reminded of what — as he once put it — it is to be a fucking human being. That’s the core of it, the question at the heart of all the other questions. It’s why we carry around dog-eared copies of his books, revisit certain essays several times a year, and daydream of someday making a pilgrimage to his archives at the Ransom Center in Texas.

JUST WORDS was created to celebrate Wallace’s work in anticipation of the upcoming film The End of the Tour. This experimental publication will be a place for hearts and questions. We told our writers to go wild — to wade deep into Wallace’s work and pull all kinds of things out of the muddy murk. We have some incredible content rolling out in the weeks ahead: articles, comics, and responses from a whole bunch of our favorite voices. Sort of like an all-you-can-eat buffet of ideas. So come hungry and keep checking back.

The End of the Tour tells the story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter (and novelist) David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel), which took place in 1996 right after the publication of Wallace’s groundbreaking epic novel, Infinite Jest. The film is based on Lipsky’s acclaimed memoir Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace. Directed by Sundance veteran James Ponsoldt from a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Marguiles. The End of the Tour hits theaters July 31st.