Karen Green/Little, Brown & Co.

Little, Brown & Co. on Tuesday revealed the jacket art for “The Pale King,” an unfinished novel by David Foster Wallace that it will publish next year. In a news release, the publisher said the novel, whose cover design was created by Mr. Wallace’s widow, Karen Green, is set in “an IRS tax-return-processing center in Illinois in the mid-1980s,” and tells the story of “a crew of entry-level processors and their attempts to do their job in the face of soul-crushing tedium.”

Michael Pietsch, the publisher of Little, Brown and the editor of the novel, said in a statement that in the the novel, Mr. Wallace “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.” The statement went on to say, “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.”

Little, Brown said it will release “The Pale King” on – when else? – April 15.