The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace [FIRST EDITION / 1987] Trade Paperback

  • $75.00


The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace 

FIRST EDITION / FIRST PRINTING [1987] PENGUIN BOOKS

*This debut novel from David Foster Wallace was first published in simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback editions.

Vintage trade paperback in very good shape.  

Top corner of text block has a small chunk of damage; resulting in chipped corners at the center of the book [see photos]

Otherwise, an excellent and seemingly unread copy with some light cover wear; and immaculate looking pages and text block. 


Published when Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent.

At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore’s great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.