even out of his mind Gately had had to admit to himself it must have been a delusion, a fever-dream. But he has to admit he’d kind of liked it. The dialogue. The give-and-take. The way the wraith could seem to get inside him. The way he said Gately’s best thoughts were really communiqués from the patient and Abiding dead. Gately wonders if his organic father the ironworker is not now maybe dead and dropping in and standing very still from time to time for a communiqué. He felt slightly better.
I like to read the wraith as symbolic of the Author's Voice, the way a really good book and very fine language will linger with you, maybe bubble into consciousness now and then. Reading and writing, for DFW, seemed to be the most exacting way to communicate his actual inner workings and thus the one he favored.
