The David Foster Wallace Empathy Contest

Wallace’s commencement address, “This is Water,” gives an unparalleled exploration of what it means to “learn how to think” — but he is silent on the subject of learning how to act. What if people started acting on those thoughts? Bradford pushes Wallace’s humanism through this story in the way that Wallace pushes Barth’s postmodernism through “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way.”

Wm. Samuel Bradford’s short story, “The David Foster Wallace Empathy Contest” is featured in Issue 5 of FLAPPERHOUSE. Read the full story here.