The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel

by David Foster Wallace

remember everyone despising Gerald Ford, not so much for pardoning Nixon but for constantly falling down. Everyone had contempt for him. Very blue designer jeans. I remember the feminist tennis player Billie Jean King beating what seemed like an old and feeble man player on television and my mother and her friends all being very excited by this. ‘Male chauvinist pig,’ ‘women’s lib,’ and ‘stagflation’ all seemed vague and indistinct to me during this time, like listening to background noise with half an ear. I don’t remember what I did with all my real attention, what-all it was going towards. I never did anything, but at the same time I could normally never sit still and become aware of what was really going on. It’s hard to explain. I somewhat remember a younger Cronkite, Barbara Walters, and Harry Reasoner—I don’t think I watched much news. Again, I suspect this was more typical than I thought at the time. One thing you learn in Rote Exams is how disorganized and inattentive most people are and how little they