Good Old Neon

David Foster Wallace was an American writer best known for his sprawling, intellectually rigorous fiction and essays. He was born on February 21, 1962, in Ithaca, New York, and died by suicide on September 12, 2008, in Claremont, California. Wallace's path into writing was academic; he earned degrees in English and philosophy, eventually teaching creative writing at Pomona College. His signature style is a dense, footnoted, and deeply self-aware prose that probes the complexities of modern consciousness. He is celebrated for his novel *Infinite Jest* and his essay collections, but his short story "Good Old Neon"—first published in the journal *Conjunctions* in 2001 and collected in *Oblivion: Stories*—is a masterwork of his later period. The story, which explores themes of fraudulence, authenticity, and suicide, was selected for *The O. Henry Prize Stories 2002* and is considered by critic Marshall Boswell to be the best and most celebrated stand-alone story in *Oblivion*. Wallace's legacy is immense, influencing a generation of writers with his unflinching examination of the human condition. He was posthumously awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and his work continues to be studied and debated.