Pleasantly surprised to see this on HN. I've read all of DFW's work and he's such an interesting writer/human being. The biography "Every Love Story is a Ghost Story" is a must-read for anyone who's interested. My favorite lines he wrote are in IJ: "you'll worry a lot less about what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do."
Interesting -- I've also read (nearly) all of DFW's work, but I've held out on ELSISAGS due to unflattering reviews. Why is ELSISAGS a must-read for you, and what do you say to reviewers who call it an insubstantial pop biography?
I enjoyed the biography because it gave context to his interviews. He would say things in interviews that were clearly misleading because of certain things he had gone through in his past. The book highlights the reasons for why he would say these things. And if you go back and listen to his interviews you get a new take on things. It's as if you are hearing a new interview (after reading Ghost Story).
I would say that while his biography is worthwhile, it's obviously less worthwhile than his writing. And, in the end, I preferred the "Although Of Course" bio-book a bit more than Ghost Story.
I found I couldn't put ELSISAGS down -- I think it's because I so desperately want to get as complete a picture of DFW as possible and the book more than anything helped me understand what DFW was really up against w/r/t his depression and its presence throughout his life. If anything, I found that ELSISAGS demystified DFW to some extent, though maybe part of that is my getting older, too.
