Donald Margulies started reading David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” in the ’90s. But he abandoned it: The 1,079-page novel was just too much. Many years later, in 2011, Margulies’ agent sent him a copy of “Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself,” a transcript of a 1996 interview between Wallace and Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky.
“It was a new introduction to Wallace. I had a new appreciation … a new understanding of him,” Margulies said. “Film could do a similar thing to a mass audience.”
Not only did Margulies finally finish “Infinite Jest,” he also adapted Lipsky’s transcript into a screenplay. The resulting movie, “The End of the Tour,” opens in Connecticut on Friday, Aug. 14.
Margulies is an adjunct professor of English and Theater Studies at Yale University. He is best known for his stage work: He has written 16 plays, including “Dinner with Friends,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2000. He has written episodes of TV series and has adapted two of his own plays into TV movies.
“The End of the Tour” is his first produced cinema feature. It tells the story of Wallace (Jason Segel) and Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) as they spend five days traveling together while the Illinois State University English teacher is publicizing “Infinite Jest” and dealing with his new status as a celebrity. Lipsky’s article was never published by Rolling Stone; the transcript was released in book form after Wallace, who suffered from depression, committed suicide in 2008 at the age of 46.
The film has received rave reviews since its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It was directed by James Ponsoldt (“The Spectacular Now,” “Smashed”), who was Margulies’ student in a playwriting class about 15 years ago.
Margulies said that when he tried to read “Infinite Jest” back then, he didn’t fully appreciate Wallace.
“There was a generational response. I was a little older than Wallace, and probably more skeptical of him when he emerged on the scene as a full-fledged literary star,” Margulies, 60, said. “One of the accomplishments of Lipsky’s book is that you can hear Wallace expound on his themes and obsessions in a fluid, witty, totally compelling way.”
Margulies’ longtime agent, David Kanter, gave Margulies the book for a possible stage adaptation.
“I didn’t see it at all on the stage. This was very much a road movie, a classic American genre,” Margulies said. “‘Easy Rider,’ ‘Two-Lane Blacktop,’ ‘The Last Detail.’ So many of these movies are frames of reference for us.”
But Lipsky’s story resonated on a personal level, Margulies said.
“I know what it’s like to have a breakthrough success that changes your life. … After I won the Pulitzer, things changed. Suddenly you have a prefix to your name. One’s creating life is defined as pre- and post-. I’m not saying that it is bad, but it is different. It’s a creative adjustment that is challenging.
“It changes the way people perceive you. You’re not just doing your work. You’re doing it to meet the demands of an audience interested in what you have to say. Writing in obscurity, you don’t have to contend with that. You’re just doing the work. Now you’re doing the work with thousands of eyes on you. It requires a certain amount of willpower to shut those noises out and do the work.”
The movie is full of memorable quotes by Wallace about literary fame. He calls the New York literary world “an enormous hiss of egos” and describes his celebrity as “this is nice, this is not real.” And he worries that “the more people think you’re great, the bigger the fear of being a fraud is.”
Margulies can relate to the quotes and to Wallace’s ambivalence, but he said the movie doesn’t necessarily get to the heart of Wallace as much as it offers a glimpse at him, limited to that five-day interview.
“The nature of this book and this interview was ‘in search of Wallace,’ in a sense. I think that’s true of most people, not just people who have entered our lives through their work,” Margulies said. “[Lipsky is] trying to uncover the mystery. It’s not in a medicine cabinet or not in a box containing a single loafer. It’s unknowable.
“We never were setting out to tell a story beyond the scope of these five days. It’s not a conventional biopic, a cradle-to-grave story with a flashback that explains everything, as so often is seen in these movies. We’re using these five days as a window into this man’s life.”
Margulies lives in New Haven with his wife, Lynn Street, a doctor. They have a son, Miles. Margulies — whose plays include “The Country House,” “Time Stands Still,” “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment,” “Brooklyn Boy,” “Collected Stories” and the Pulitzer-winning “Dinner With Friends” — said he has a new play in the works, and is about to start a new screenplay.
“I may be doing a miniseries next year, too,” he said. “I have a lot on my plate next year.”
“THE END OF THE TOUR” is showing at Bow Tie Palace 17 & BTX Theater, 330 New Park Ave. in Hartford.
Editor’s note: This story is amended from a previous version to correct the date Margulies read the Lipsky book.
