In addition to providing self-contained readings of each text, Boswell places Wallace within a trajectory of literary innovation that begins with James Joyce and continues through Wallace's most important postmodern forebears, John Barth and Thomas Pynchon. Although Wallace is sometimes labeled a postmodern writer, Boswell argues that he should be regarded as the nervous leader of some still unnamed--and perhaps unnameable--third wave of modernism. Boswell contends that in charting an innovative course for literary practice, Wallace does not seek merely to overturn postmodernism, nor simply to return to modernism. Instead he moves resolutely forward as his writing hoists the baggage of modernism and postmodernism heavily, but respectfully, on its back.
Marshall Boswell is the author of the story collection, "Trouble with Girls" (Algonquin Books, 2003) and the novel "Alternative Atlanta" (Delacorte Press, 2005). Both books are currently available in paperback. His new novel is called "The Opinion Leader" and should be forthcoming soon.
In addition, Marshall has published two book-length scholarly monographs, " John Updike's Rabbit Tetralogy: Mastered Irony in Motion" (University of Missouri Press, 2001) and "Understanding David Foster Wallace" (University of South Carolina Press, 2004). He is also the co-editor of Volume IV of "The Encylcopedia of American Literature: 1946 to the Present" (Facts on File, 2008).
Marshall grew up in the Mid-South and received his B.A. from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, VA. He holds an M.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and a Ph.D. from Emory University in Atlanta. Since 1996 he as taught American Literature and Fiction Writing at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, where he is an Associate Professor. He is married and the father of three sons. His old band, Enormous Richard, once opened up for Alex Chilton and Uncle Tupelo. In fact, his band is "thanked" in the liner notes of Uncle Tupelo's first album, though he's pretty sure Jeff Tweedy couldn't pick him out in a police line-up. Incidentally, Marshall's never actually been in a police line-up.
