The Tax Man's Heart of Darkness

Can it be a coincidence that this year — when the issue of taxes has become an abyss that both divides and conquers our national government — we also have two new books about IRS workers by important novelists of ideas? The first, of course, is David Foster Wallace’s posthumously published “The Pale King,” a long consideration of the nature and purpose of the “Service.” The second is Lydia Millet’s new novel, “Ghost Lights,” in which the main character’s career as a tax collector doesn’t figure much in the action, but does serve as an underpinning of his identity.