Whoever it was who first put Wallace up to this bit of hack work deserves a medal, for it turns out he is very, very good at it. In the world of slick magazine writing, where collusion is the norm and macho puffery pretty much out of control, Wallace consistently snags on the unpretty and the fake. He will never let his reader forget someone has attempted to tailor a lot of what we read, watch, and observe to get us to buy something. He attacks this truth like a hopped-up Doberman in this rabidly intelligent collection of essays, ''Consider the Lobster."
In the dozen or so years since his first ''article," the magazine world seems to have caught on to Wallace, for the tenor of his assignments reflects a wise but sadistic desire by editors to throw this highly sensitive, squeamish man at situations he is almost sure to loathe. Over the course of the book he wades acres of flesh at the Adult Video News annual award show, and weathers the most grisly week of the 2000 political campaign with John McCain. He stands in line at the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, and spends a chunk of time with a conservative radio talk show host in California.
To read Wallace's rendition of these events is to experience the muchness of American life in the way that Tom Wolfe used to deliver it to us. Like the great avatar of new journalism, Wallace is a master of flipping a world inside out through its own lingo, of swallowing it whole and then destroying it from the inside on its own terms. However, there's a new tone in ''Consider the Lobster." Without simplifying, it's safe to say that these pieces are more aware of the effect they might have on the reader. They acknowledge what's at stake -- be it faith in the food supply or faith in a political system -- and tailor their delivery accordingly.
