Each chapter stands almost alone, with text ranging from straight dialogues between coworkers about civics or cartography to snippets of the 1985 Illinois tax code to poignant sensory or character sketches.

Other primary characters include Lane Dean Jr., Claude Sylvanshine, David Cusk, and Leonard Stecyk, men drawn for vastly different reasons to a career in the IRS.

[4] The novel (or "long thing", Wallace's usual term for it) had numerous working titles throughout this period, including Glitterer, SJF (Sir John Feelgood), Net of Gems,[5] and What Is Peoria For?

[4] One of his notebooks found by his widow, Karen Green (who designed the American edition's cover art[1]), suggested a possible direction for the novel's plot: "...an evil group within the IRS is trying to steal the secrets of an agent who is particularly gifted at maintaining a heightened state of concentration."

On September 14, 2010, Pietsch announced the novel's publication date and provided further information about its plot, saying the book "takes agonizing daily events like standing in lines, traffic jams, and horrific bus rides—things we all hate—and turns them into moments of laughter and understanding", a theme Wallace addressed in his 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech.

[7] Pietsch added, "although David did not finish the novel, it is a surprisingly whole and satisfying reading experience that showcases his extraordinary imaginative talents and his mixing of comedy and deep sadness in scenes from daily life.

"[1] Although Little, Brown and Company set The Pale King's publication date for April 15, 2011 (Tax Day), Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble were allowed to sell copies on their websites as early as March 22, 2011.

[15][16] Jonathan Segura wrote in Publishers Weekly that The Pale King "isn't the era-defining monumental work we've all been waiting for since Infinite Jest altered the landscape of American fiction", but that it is "one hell of a document and a valiant tribute to the late Wallace".

[17] In Esquire, Benjamin Alsup wrote that The Pale King is an "incomplete and weirdly fractured pseudo memoir" that is "frustratingly difficult in places" and "potholed throughout by narrative false starts and dead ends".

"[18] In Time, Lev Grossman wrote: "if The Pale King isn't a finished work, it is, at the very least, a remarkable document, by no means a stunt or an attempt to cash in on Wallace's posthumous fame.

"[19] In The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani wrote that The Pale King "feels less like an incomplete manuscript than a rough-edged digest of the themes, preoccupations and narrative techniques that have distinguished [Wallace's] work from the beginning".

[24] The first academic conference about the book, "Work in Process: Reading David Foster Wallace's The Pale King", took place at the University of Antwerp in Belgium from September 22 to 23, 2011.