The Broom of the System

by David Foster Wallace

      “The Broom of the System” is sort of a comedy soap opera. It begins with an episode from Lenore Beadsman’s teen years, when she visited her older sister at college. Two boys from Amherst broke into the dorm room Lenore’s sister, Clarise, shared with three other girls. They wanted the girls to sign and photograph their bare behinds and refused to leave until the deed was done.

The story takes up again years after Lenore finished college and was working as a telephone operator with the Frequent and Vigorous Publishers. She was late for work one morning because the nursing home her father owns called her early that morning and asked her to come to the nursing home right away. They hinted that there was a problem, but didn’t say why they wanted her there.

Since both her grandmother and her great grandmother, also named Lenore Beadsman, lived there, she assumed there was something wrong with one or both of them. She hurried to the home and met with the administrator as he had requested. He told her that her great grandmother was missing along with nineteen other residents and four staff members. The staff members’ families were also missing.

“The Broom of the System” is written by a young man in his mid-twenties and is written for the same age group. It is definitely not for us older adults who have a different view of what is funny. Most of it, in my experience, required a lot of effort for me to stay tuned in. I found it difficult to stay awake and impossible to stay interested. Now, if you like that kind of comedy, “The Broom of the System” is definitely the book for you. Listen and enjoy.