RaveEsquireLet's state this clearly: You should read The Pale King … The Pale King asks you, for instance, why it is that you haven't spent more time considering the morality of our tax code. It asks what it means to be a citizen of Grand Rapids, Michigan, or Beloit, Wisconsin, or Peoria, Illinois, and whether being an American really means anything at all … Throughout The Pale King Wallace asks these questions of us. Or rather through some function of his genius, he causes us to ask these questions of ourselves.