The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm, and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to . . .
Infinite Jest author David Foster Wallace is reported dead of an apparent suicide at the age of 46. (Confirmed.)
Kathleen Kent’s first novel, The Heretic’s Daughter, evokes the fears, diseases, and petty grudges of the witch trials era with an eerie, visceral concreteness. The book was inspired by Kent’s ancestor, Martha Carrier, who was jailed, tried, found to be a witch, and hung. To her dying breath, she refused to confess, or to beg for leniency. Below Kent answers . . .
“Wallace,” said Poe, “I have just written the greatest poem that ever was written.” Levi Stahl is enjoying The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes.
HarperStudio will publish 22 previously unpublished Twain humor pieces on the 99th anniversary of his death next April.