A spoof on our culture featuring a drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation house near Boston. The center becomes a hotbed of revolutionary activity by Quebec separatists in revolt against the Organization of North American Nations which now rules the continent.

In the title story a Los Angeles Young Republican relates, with strangely hilarious affectlessness, his night out at a Keith Jarrett concert with is terminmally nihilistic punk friends Gimlet, Cheese, and Big, In "My Appearance" a very famous actresss frets and schemes how to avoid being made the butt of a late-night talk-show host's notoriously slippery jokes, while :Little Expressionless Animals" gives us a three-year streak on a game show, finally...

For this collection, Wallace immerses himself in the three-ring circus that is the presidential race in order to document one of the most vicious campaigns in recent history. Later he strolls from booth to booth at a lobster festival in Maine and risks life and limb to get to the bottom of the lobster question. Then he wheedles his way into an L.A. radio studio, armed with tubs of chicken, to get the behind-the-scenes view of a conservative talk show...

"Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. The speech is reprinted for the first time in book form in THIS IS WATER. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as...

Twenty-two stories tell of a frightened boy frozen on a diving board, a depressed woman trying to find help, and a group of men who try to rationalize their relationships with women.

After being dumped by her boyfriend, a graduate student sets out to interview a series of men to discover the truth behind their behavior.