The character David Foster Wallace is introduced to the banal world of the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, and the host of strange people who work there, in a novel that was unfinished at the time of the author's death.

"An ingeniously imagined, hilarious romp through time, space, and the human heart... The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house?"-- Dust jacket flap. "In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she'll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether...

When it comes to living an exciting life, sensible Jasper Pye is closed tighter than his omnipresent umbrella. But he's finally had it with being a prim and proper, boring civil servant and he is itching for something new. Fate agrees and sets into motion some fantastical plans guaranteed to turn his "responsible" life on it's head.

Presents an English translation of the nineteenth-century Russian novel about Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned confidence man who comes up with a plan to elevate his social standing by buying the souls of dead peasants.