Full name: The Broom of the System: A Novel

Author: David Foster Wallace Year: 1987 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Fiction, Contemporary Purchase/reserch links: Amazon Goodreads LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780143129448 9780142002421 0143129449 0142002429 0143116932

Published when Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore's great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality. Similar books: The Thanatos Syndrome by Walker Percy Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy The Fourth Hand by John Irving Ravelstein by Saul Bellow The Second Coming by Walker Percy Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter The Water-Method Man by John Irving Lancelot by Walker Percy The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers Rabbit Redux by John Updike Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo Falconer by John Cheever The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout Don't Let Me Go by Catherine Ryan Hyde We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver