Claremont COURIER/Friday, August 14, 2015

Tour offers a compelling visit with David Foster Wallace

he End of the Tour opens today at

the local Laemmles, offering literary buffs the chance to squeeze
into the diner booth with David Lipsky
and David Foster Wallace as they talk
about everything from depression to sex
to Alanis Morissette.

The movie hones in on five days in 1996 when Lipsky interviewed Wallacethen on a book tour promoting his epic novel Infinite Jestfor a Rolling
Stone article.
Wallace is considered by many to be among the
worlds greatest writers, if one of its more challenging
ones.
A New York Times obit described him as a maximalist, exhibiting in his work a huge, even manic curiosityabout the physical world, about the much
larger universe of human feelings and about the complexity of living in America at the end of the 20th
century.
If youre unfamiliar with the writer, you should
know he has a couple of Claremont connections, one
boast-worthy and another merely sad. Wallace was a
professor at Pomona College for a time. And in 2009,
he hanged himself at his Claremont home at the age
of 46.
David Foster Wallace lives again in The End of
the Tour, with actor Jason Segel donning his trademark bandanna and channeling his unblinking insights and acrobatic wit. Jesse Eisenberg plays
Lipsky.
Mr. Lipsky was 30 at the time of the interview, and
more than slightly awed by Wallaces talent and success. While he was press-wary, Wallace, then 34, welcomed Lipsky as a friend and roommate, at one point
insisting to the younger writer that, Mi Pop Tart es
su Pop Tart.
The close-quarters communion was a life-changing
experience.
I had loved going on that trip, getting the chance
to talk to someone who was my favorite writer, Mr.
Lipsky told the COURIER. I had been reading
David and now I had this great chance to be sitting in
his house, seeing where he wrote and finding out
what he loved to read and what movies he loved.
The Rolling Stone piece was cancelled but after
Wallaces death, Mr. Lipsky took out the tape
recorder and returned to those hours of conversation.
The result is his 2010 memoir, Although Of Course
You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip
With David Foster Wallace.
A few people, out of churlishness or posthumous
concern for Wallaces cherished privacy, insist the
book and subsequent movie are cynically trading in
on Wallaces fame.
However, as Lipsky reminds Wallace in The End
of the Tour, he agreed to the interview. And most
readers view his account as a heartfelt and valuable
glimpse into the mind of a genius. On its release, the
Atlantic Monthly called the book far-reaching, insightful, very funny, profound, surprising, and awfully human.
Lipsky had his own qualms about discussing his
time with Wallace. The producer of NPRs All
Things Considered, though, convinced him to join a
broadcast about David Foster Wallace that aired
shortly after his death.
What the producer explained to me is that theres
a real risk when someone dies [by their own hand]
that people will read their work looking for clues or
reasons why they committed suicidethat theyll
read the work with gray glasses on, Mr. Lipsky said.
I know hes an incredible person to read, completely
awake and electric.
Like the book, The End of the Tour follows two

Jason Segel, left, plays former Claremont resident, Pomona College professor and author,
the late David Foster Wallace, in the film The
End of the Tour. The movie chronicles the five
days the two Davids spent together in 1996
when Mr. Lipsky was interviewing Mr. Wallace
for Rolling Stone. Actor Jesse Eisenberg, at
right in photo above, plays David Lipsky.

Photos courtesy of A24 Films

I had loved going on that trip, getting the chance to talk to someone
who was my favorite writer, Mr.
Lipsky told the COURIER. I had
been reading David and now I had
this great chance to be sitting in his
house, seeing where he wrote and
finding out what he loved to read
and what movies he loved.

men hanging out and talking, whether their exchanges

take place in a rental car, while loading up on junk
food at a convenience store, in a darkened theater
showing the explosion-heavy Broken Arrow or in
the food court of an overblown shopping mall. Despite lacking a blockbuster plot trajectory, the film beguiles as an account of what Mr. Lipsky calls a really
smart person who has ruminated overthings and
then found a way to say it out loud.
When director James Ponsoldt was casting the film,
Mr. Lipsky had a huge emotional stake in who was
selected to play Wallace. The decision to cast Jason
Segel worried some purists because the actor is best
known for comedic roles, with familiar endeavors including a longstanding part on the sit-com How I

Met Your Mother and a job acting alongside the

Muppets.
Mr. Lipsky, however, sensed it was a good choice.
He felt it was important that he and Wallace be played
by writers. He points out that Segel writes his own
movies and has even tackled a novel for kids, while
Jesse Eisenberg has two plays under his belt.
It wasnt until the film was in the can, however,
that Mr. Lipsky realized how inspired the choice was.
I was doing an interview with Jason on NPR and
they were playing the audio from when David and I
were driving around, he said. They began playing a
clip from the movie and my first thought was, thats
when Dave and I were at Dennys. Jason got his voice
and he also got the tremendous intelligence behind his
voice.
Above everything, Lipsky is a fan of Wallace. A
professor at Cornell, he teaches Infinite Jest, helping
students get over the daunting fact that the book is
more than 1,000 dense pages and discover that its
an extraordinary novel.
Critics are hailing The End of the Tour as extraordinary as well. Mr. Lipsky is happy with the film, too.
What I love about the movie is one of the things I
wanted to get in the book. Its full of life, he said.
Wallace was fully awake, Mr. Lipsky reiterated,
and when you are awake, it makes you charming and
alive and electric to be with.
And for a wordsmith, theres nothing like the
chance to spend time with a literary hero.
If you really love a writer, you wish you could call
them on the phone and ask them about everything in
the world. And all of a sudden, there I was.
Showings for The End of the Tour, which opens
today at the Laemmles Claremont 5, are at 1:40,
4:30, 7:30 and 10:15 p.m. For information, call (909)
621-5500.
Sarah Torribio
storribio@claremont-courier.com