Amy Wallace has given few interviews about her older brother, the acclaimed writer David Foster Wallace, since his death by suicide in 2008. In a thoughtful profile, Lindsey Adler focuses on the younger Wallace sibling, now “the only living member of the nuclear Foster Wallace family,” and her challenging relationship with her brother.
In the course of subjecting Amy to many, many hours of conversations about herself, her brother, and my own writing life and hangups about it, I found someone who is as entertaining as she is earnest. Scrutiny around David’s upbringing is inevitably scrutiny of her own upbringing, though hardly any of those critics care to understand her experience—or even know she exists. She carries that family trait of delighting in absurdity. She hasn’t deified or demonized her brother despite the persistent desire in the literary community to do one or the other.
More picks about complicated sibling relationships
What Happens to a School Shooter’s Sister?
“Twenty-five years ago, Kristin Kinkel’s brother, Kip, killed their parents and opened fire at their high school. Today, she is close with Kip—and still reckoning with his crimes.”
There I Almost Am
“I can be a very generous sister—maternal, even—as long as I am winning.” Jean Garnett writes about envy and being a twin.
The Han Twins
“The narrative that emerged was as simplistic as it was appealing: An evil twin, Jeen, had grown so jealous of her minutes-older and higher-achieving sister, Sunny, that she set in motion a barely believable sequence of events. The truth is far more interesting.”
