The novel's primary locations are the Enfield Tennis Academy, Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House (footnoted "Redundancy sic" in the text), and a conversation between a Quebec separatist and a U.S. Much of what used to be the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada has become a hazardous waste dump known as the "Great Concavity" to Americans and as the "Great Convexity" to Canadians. Corporations purchase naming rights to each calendar year, eliminating traditional numerical designations for example, "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment" and "The Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland". In the novel's future world, North America is one unified state comprising the United States, Canada, and Mexico, known as the Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.). Wallace's working title for Infinite Jest had been A Failed Entertainment.
In addition to being the title given to the fictional film central to the story, reviewers have also considered the title a "sly wink at the book's massive girth." The novel derives its name in part from a line in Hamlet, in which Hamlet refers to the skull of Yorick, the court jester: "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!"
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