Podcast Summary

The New Yorker: Fiction — Adam Levin Reads David Foster Wallace

Host: Deborah Treisman
Guest: Adam Levin
Episode Date: November 1, 2025
Story Discussed: “Backbone” by David Foster Wallace

Episode Overview

This episode of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast features writer Adam Levin reading and discussing David Foster Wallace's story "Backbone," originally published posthumously in the New Yorker in 2011 and later included as Chapter 36 of Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King. Fiction editor Deborah Treisman leads a deep conversation with Levin about Wallace's language, themes of ambition, faith, pain, and wholeness, as well as the story's complex narrative voice and autobiographical shadows.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Adam Levin’s Relationship to Wallace and "Backbone"

• Levin as a Wallace admirer:
  • Adam Levin shares he's been a devoted fan since reading Infinite Jest at 19, which he immediately reread out of admiration.

    “I freaked out for it. It's all I did until I finished it, and then I instantly reread it.” (03:34)

• Influences and comparisons:
  • Levin discusses how his early fascination with Wallace, Salinger, Vonnegut, and George Saunders shaped him—even if critics’ comparisons to Wallace focus too much on book length rather than style.

    “I don't think that that book (The Instructions) really resembles Wallace in any meaningful way other than maybe the length…” (04:18)

• Why "Backbone":
  • Levin chose "Backbone" because it was the “section that most blew my mind” from The Pale King, instantly assigning it in his workshop.

    “This was the section that most blew my mind in it… I taught it, like, I think the next day.” (05:42)

  • Draws parallels between “Backbone” and Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist.”

    “I think that there's a lot of conversation between the two stories, but mostly it's that the story just kind of blew me away. It still does. I'm not sure I fully understand it.” (06:21)

2. On "Backbone" — Story Content & Wallace’s Drafts

• Story Summary:
  • The protagonist is a boy obsessively devoted to the goal of touching every inch of his own body with his lips—an increasingly impossible feat requiring intense discipline, training, and pain.
• Elusive motivation and pain:
  • The story repeatedly notes that the boy’s purpose is never clear, even to himself.

    “Nor was it ever established precisely why this boy had devoted himself to the goal…” (02:01, 23:20)

• Parental absence and incompleteness:
  • Discussion highlights how the boy’s mother is absent or possibly dead (in earlier drafts, explicitly so).

    “There's all of this absence in the story, such as his mother. And we don't know what happened to his mother in this version.” (41:55)

  • The father is distant, physically and emotionally; the house is described as “half removed.”
• Ambitious yet isolating devotion:
  • The story uses intricate medical and anatomical terminology to emphasize the tedium and discipline—and possibly the narcissism—of the boy’s pursuit.

3. Themes Explored

• Wholeness vs. Incompleteness
  • The story’s first line, “Every whole person has ambitions, objectives, initiatives, goals,” is picked apart for its boardroom/self-help tone and for the problematic notion of “wholeness.”

    “Every whole person. Like that construction… it sounds self helpy.” (41:24)

  • Treisman points out, “This boy seems very far from whole. You know, he's sort of tragically incomplete.” (41:55)
• Faith, Doubt, and Artistic Compulsion
  • Levin and Treisman read the boy’s relentless practice as a metaphor for faith or artistic drive, emphasized by the closing:

    “He would find a way to access all of himself. He possessed nothing that anyone could ever call doubt inside.” (66:34)

  • The father is portrayed as lacking faith/constancy, while the boy is unwavering.
• Self-Containment and Parental Echoes
  • Treisman suggests the boy’s obsessive self-contact could be a substitute for absent parental affection—“on some level, I feel that the boy who doesn't really have parents… is becoming a parent. He's sort of being parent and child at the same time.” (49:14)

4. Religious and Historical Motifs

• Allusions to Saints and Mystics
  • The narrative threads in stories of saints and stigmata, juxtaposed against the boy’s physicality and ascetic discipline.

    “Why do you think those narratives are there?...I think that, again, this might be me…But the case that I think is being made is… faith in itself being the thing that's being stressed rather than what the faith is in.” (47:49)

• Veracity and Narrative Play
  • Some of these historical or mystical references are possibly invented, reflecting Wallace’s style of blending erudition, invention, and skepticism.

    “I couldn't find him. I couldn't find a reference [to the Indian mystic whose eyes left their sockets]…I love the idea that he might have.” (62:51)

5. Voice and Narrative Perspective

• Narrative Style:
  • The story flows in and out of perspectives—sometimes deeply immersed in the father, sometimes floating over the boy, sometimes distancing into historical exposition and medical jargon.

    “We actually don't really go in the boy's mind… but we don't get the same kind of emotional context that we do with the father.” (56:34) “Some of these survived the eventual fire…” (58:04)

  • The ambiguous narrative vantage point opens space for digression, reflection, and uncertainty.
• Long sentences and technical language:
  • Levin and Treisman note how Wallace’s learned, meticulous prose slows the reader and instills realism, while also reflecting the tedium that defines the boy’s journey.

    “In terms of the medical terminology, I think it gives the reader… a sense that the writer actually knows what he's talking about. That there's an objective reality to some of this.” (60:07)

6. Autobiographical Implications & Artistry

• Metaphor for Writing Perfection:
  • Treisman speculates the boy’s impossible project echoes Wallace’s own painstaking artistic standards and his struggle to compose The Pale King:

    “I just thought about how long he was working on this book and how painstaking it was and… how many pages he left behind. And… I think a little bit, there's a certain torture in that…” (64:10)

• Dignity in the Impossible
  • Both agree the story ends on a note that is “bittersweet,” lending dignity to the act of striving, even if fulfillment is impossible:

    “He would find a way to access all of himself. He possessed nothing… that anyone could ever call doubt inside.” (66:34)

  • “The attempt is dignified. And, like, that makes me less depressed, you know?” (66:03)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Compulsion vs. Motivation:

  “I think that the thing is, he is just… compelled like, it's the same way that, I don't know, I'm compelled to breathe or something… why people make art… It's actually unaccountable. It just is… They're compelled.” — Adam Levin (45:57)

• On the story’s final line:

  “He would find a way to access all of himself. He possessed nothing that anyone could ever call doubt inside.” — (66:34)

• On the use of religious allusion:

  "Faith in itself being the thing that's being stressed rather than what the faith is in, what faith in itself really looks like and what it's… capable of doing. I say this as someone who's not a really a faithful person." — Adam Levin (48:51)

• On Parental Distance and Self-Nurturing:

  “Who wants to kiss every inch of a child is the mother… I feel that the boy who doesn't really have parents or doesn't have engaged parents who want to kiss him, is becoming a parent. He's sort of being parent and child at the same time. And perhaps that is also a form of wholeness.” — Deborah Treisman (49:14)

• On Artistic/Autobiographical Metaphor:

  “There's that line that the boy's goal becomes something that will require maximum effort, discipline, and a commitment sustainable over periods of time… I just thought about how long he was working on this book and how painstaking it was…” — Deborah Treisman (64:10)

• On the value of striving:

  “Even if it's impossible to achieve whatever your version of perfection is, but it's also dignified. The attempt is dignified.” — Adam Levin (66:03)

Important Segment Timestamps

• Adam Levin on Wallace’s influence: 03:34–03:55
• Choosing “Backbone”: 05:42–06:28
• Discussion of “wholeness” and absence: 41:55–44:08
• Artistic compulsion and metaphor: 45:57–47:13, 64:10
• Religious references and faith: 47:49–49:14
• Voice and narrative technique: 56:34–61:13
• Autobiographical reading, perfectionism: 64:10–66:34
• Closing thoughts on the story’s dignity: 66:34–68:29

Flow & Utility for New Listeners

This episode deftly weaves together a close reading of a challenging Wallace story with wide-ranging questions about art, faith, discipline, family, and what it means to strive for the impossible. Adam Levin, as a devoted and self-aware Wallace reader, brings insights into both Wallace’s process and legacy, while Deborah Treisman contextualizes the story’s evolution and deepens the discussion with her editorial experience. The episode is rich with literary references (Kafka, Larkin, mystic saints), sensitive to both emotional and structural undertones, and full of observations any writer or Wallace fan will find provocative and inspiring, even if they haven’t read “Backbone” or The Pale King.

Summary Table

| Segment | Timestamp | Content | |----------------------------------|------------|--------------------------------------------------------| | Adam Levin’s Wallace fandom | 03:34–03:55| How Wallace’s work inspired and overwhelmed Levin | | Why “Backbone” was chosen | 05:42–06:28| Its shocking originality, use in teaching | | Discussion: Wholeness & absence | 41:55–44:08| Debating the meaning of “whole,” mother’s absence | | Artistic compulsion | 45:57–47:13| The inexplicability of certain lifelong quests | | Religious/saintly references | 47:49–49:14| Faith, stigma, and divine wounds—a motif in the story | | Parental-Child self-containment | 49:14–50:34| The boy as both child and surrogate parent | | Wallace’s technical narration | 56:34–61:13| Narrative voice, omniscience, medical language | | Wallace’s methods as metaphor | 64:10–66:34| Boy’s goal as echo of Wallace’s own perfectionism | | Dignity in futile striving | 66:34–68:29| The bittersweet, hopeful closing |

Final Thoughts

The episode stands as not only an introduction to “Backbone” and Wallace’s methods, but a meditation on the nature of striving, the complexity of family, and the artistry of telling what cannot truly be resolved. The conversation’s layered close reading, its questioning of motivation and narrative, and its bittersweet optimism will resonate for listeners well beyond this individual story.