Is Posthumously Publishing Unfinished Work Fair to the Author?

December 9, 2009 Edward Nawotka 5 Comments

By Edward Nawotka

David Foster Wallace

In April 2011, Little, Brown will publish David Foster Wallace’s unfinished manuscript called The Pale King. An excerpt was published in The New Yorker earlier this year and another appears this week. In answering questions about his March article describing David Foster Wallace’s struggles to finish the novel, journalist D.T. Max was asked what Wallace’s wishes were for the work. Max replied:

“I don’t think Wallace made any stipulations about the publication of The Pale King. All we really know is that about a year before he died, he almost sent a section of the partial novel to Little, Brown in order to get an advance and that he appeared to organize some pages—many the same that he prepared for Little, Brown—for his wife, Karen Green, to find on his death. So there are at least some sections of the novel that, edited, he wanted to have see the light of day. It also seems clear from an e-mail he sent his agent that he thought he had gotten further with the characters than he had with a plot that would satisfy readers. In Michael Pietsch, at Little, Brown, Wallace had a talented and disciplined editor, one who knew his work well. My suspicion is that, if Pietsch can’t find a full book in the manuscript, he will say so and publish it with notes explaining what’s missing. What we may be getting is a lot of characters introduced without knowing what they wind up doing with each other. On the other hand, maybe not.”

Sometimes, these things almost never turn out well—think of Ralph Ellison’s Juneteenth—or else merely feel unfinished, like Knopf’s recent publication of Nabokov’s The Original of Laura, which—with its detachable index cards—is either a publishing feat or or a gimmick. Either way, it is in no way a complete work. (It is, it could be argued, something altogether different—a literary artifact.)

Does Little, Brown’s decision to go ahead with publication of The Pale King strike you as a good idea? Is it in any way dubious or cynical? Is it, ultimately, fair to the author?

And perhaps of most importance, will you risk your $35 for a taste of what might have been?

Tell us what you think in the comments below or via Twitter using hashtag #ppbonus.

VIEW: Manuscript pages from The Pale King (via The New Yorker book blog).

READ: Our lead article about David Foster Wallace’s German publisher, Kiepenheuer & Witsch

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5 Comments → “Is Posthumously Publishing Unfinished Work Fair to the Author?”

After Six Years, Germany’s KiWi Cashes In on Infinite Jest | Publishing Perspectives

9 months ago

[...] BONUS:Is Posthumously Publishing Unfinished Work Fair to the Author? [...]
Erin

9 months ago

Whether commercially successful or not, I think it’s always of interest to see the unpublished work of writers to give insight into their talent, their process, and to provide new stories for their fans and supporters. With DFW and, in light of his tragic death, I think publishing THE PALE KING is even more important. DFW wrote novels and stories that had great impact on society, literature, and his fans. To be robbed of his talent so early in his life and career, I think a lot of people need to see where he was in his writing, his mind-set, and find some peace in these last words of his.
EKSwitaj

9 months ago

Who cares if it’s unfair to authors? They’re dead. They don’t care anymore.
Jennifer

9 months ago

I agree with Erin that the unfinished work can be of great value to readers. Although the work may not be in the final form the author would have given us, as long as the reader knows that it is an unfinished work, I don’t think that it is unfair to the author.
Maria Bustillos

9 months ago

I will be buying The Pale King as soon as it’s available.

Had the author wished to, he could have destroyed this work; instead, he seems to have meant for it to be published … he had been famous for long enough to know that there were people interested in reading even a stray shopping list he’d left lying around, so if there’d been anything he didn’t want seen, he would have destroyed it.

Wallace had a polarizing effect on readers when he was alive. I heard him once at a reading describe the letters he received from readers, how some of them would say, “I love your work, it means so much to me,” and others, “what pretentious, meaningless twaddle.” And then he said, “and neither of these groups seems to me to be entirely deluded, or insane.” What happens after you’re done writing can’t ever be controlled, isn’t ever “fair”; or rather, questions of fairness are beside the point, somehow.