{"description": "A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human - and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.", "title": "Infinite Jest", "covers": [8237639, 191075, 8402800, 10071047, 8015685, 9051989, 9141644, 9343501, 12455623], "first_sentence": {"type": "/type/text", "value": "I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies."}, "excerpts": [{"excerpt": "I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies."}], "first_publish_date": "1996", "key": "/works/OL2943602W", "authors": [{"author": {"key": "/authors/OL448939A"}, "type": {"key": "/type/author_role"}}], "dewey_number": ["813/.54"], "type": {"key": "/type/work"}, "subjects": ["Saddness", "Compulsive behavior", "Entertainment", "Tennis", "Addicts", "Fiction", "Separatist movements", "Motion pictures", "Humorous stories", "Family life", "Coming of age", "Friendship", "Dominance (Psychology)", "Fiction, humorous", "nyt:trade-fiction-paperback=2008-10-05", "New York Times bestseller", "Fiction, humorous, general"], "latest_revision": 28, "revision": 28, "created": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2009-12-10T01:10:04.959273"}, "last_modified": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2026-01-01T19:04:56.205424"}}