This news appears to have gone unremarked beyond a local obituary: Sally Foster Wallace, teacher and writer, has died at the age of eighty-two. Her husband, the philosopher James Wallace, died in 2019. David Foster Wallace was their son.
Sally Foster Wallace’s Practically Painless English (1980) is a textbook noteworthy for the loopy humor of its sample sentences. Three random samples:
George is upset because his father thinks he lied about the cherry tree.And from an exercise in commas:
Rats! My wig has burst into flames again! Help!
The big fish kept out of trouble because he shut his mouth and stayed in school.
You set fire to the pizza[,] didn’t you?
comments: 2
"She was fearless in every sense of the world, and in the final years of her life, tried many new things, such as zip-lining and attending monthly poetry slams."
Nice.
That’s a nice touch. It couldn’t have been an easy family life (Avril Incandenza in Infinite Jest is DFW’s version of his mother). I’m glad that she was able to take in new experiences and sources of happiness.
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