Brief Interview

In the interviews, Wallace makes general but indirect statements about some of society’s most cherished institutions and conventions. In the aforementioned case, the interviewee reveals that he married his wife because she had a good body and because she “had a kid but wasn’t all blown out and veiny and sagged.” Wallace then gets to the crux of how the man views marriage: “I’d always had a dread of marrying some good-looking woman and then we have a kid and it blows her body out but I still have to have sex with her because this is who I’ve signed on to have sex with the whole rest of my life.” The woman the interviewee marries has, in his words, been “pre-tested.” This showed extraordinary vocabulary.