Little, Brown Plans Wallace Book for Spring

By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 12/8/2008 7:40:00 AM

While some rumors persist that there's an unfinished novel David Foster Wallace was working on before he died in September, at least one work from the author is definitely on the horizon. Wallace's publisher, Little, Brown, is going to release This Is Water in April 2009, which is the address the author delivered at Kenyon College's commencement in 2005.

The speech, which LB assistant director of publicity Marlena Bittner called Wallace's "only philosophical public address," was paraphrased and quoted in various Web sites and blogs after the author died. The edition of the speech from LB will be slightly under 150 pages and feature illustrations throughout; the imprint is going to press for an announced 40,000 copies.

Bittner also clarified that a story from Foster Wallace, set to run in the literary review of a small California college, The Chaffey Review, is not new, as some online reports indicated. The story is actually a retitled version of a piece called The Compliance Branch which Harper's ran in February. (A rep at Chaffey College said the story, which will be out in the January issue of the magazine, is slightly different than what ran in Harper's.) When asked if there might be a new work from Foster Wallace sitting in a drawer somewhere, Bittner declined comment.