the year after he won the Lannan, the MacArthur Foundation gave him an award of $230,000, which, together with the Lannan money and the income from his books, effectively freed him from the need to teach. The receipt of a so-called genius award was acutely uncomfortable for Wallace. It sat just the wrong side of his worry that he was a high-level entertainer who could be bought by what he called, in a letter to Markson, “the blow-jobs the culture gives out.” He did not like the idea of being celebrated for who he was, as opposed to what he had written or was currently trying to write.
