Set in an addicts' hallway house and a tennis academy, and featuring one of the moste endearing screwed-up families in contemporary fiction. Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to dominate our livs, 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 philisophical 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. (back cover)