I'd like to turn it around and make it a virtue how kind of compulsively self-centered this story seems, like, get it, it's about how depressed people keep comin atcha with their neediness and depression so this story is gonna keep comin atcha about how depressed people keep comin atcha about their neediness and depression, and you're gonna grudgingly listen to DFW for the same reason the depressed person in the story's friends grudgingly listen to her, and maybe that's all so, but it still leaves you with a story that leaves you feeling grudging. ( )