SOURCE: A review of The Broom of the System, in Kirkus Reviews, Vol. LIV, No. 22, November 15, 1986, p. 1686.

In the following review, the critic finds that Wallace's first novel displays flashes of genius but also suffers from an immature and derivative style.

This unusual debut, the first novel to be published simultaneously in hard-cover and as a paperback in Penguin's "Contemporary American Fiction" series, suffers from a severe case of manic impressiveness. Wallace, a recent Amherst grad, is something of a puerile Pynchon, a discount Don DeLillo, and even a bit of an original.

Brimming with subplots, stories within stories, countless one-liners, and a cast of characters worthy of some sort of postmodern Dickens, this bulky fiction, when it isn't plain tedious, seems to be a big inside-joke. Almost every male in the book went to Amherst, from Rich Vigorous (class of '69), the head of Frequent and Vigorous...