David Foster Wallace, R.I.P. David Foster Wallace, the author of "Infinite Jest," was found dead in his home in Claremont on Friday night. The 46-year-old author apparently committed suicide. David Foster Wallace was a recipient of a MacArthur "genuis" grant in 1997. He was teaching creative writing at Pomona College. He will be missed. This totally sucks - one of my favorite writers, a true original. His fiction was great and innovative, but his reportage was equally fantastic. It's hard for me to fathom why someone with his talent would take this step.
yeah its too bad. many of his characters had some sort of severe OCD, perhaps he did as well. It is sad.
This totally sucks. Whenever someone with such a high level of intelligence commits suicide it makes me think that maybe they were just too perceptive or sensitive to be able to stand living in such a fucked up world.
Like most of the greats (T.Pynchon, K.Vonnegut, Hunter Thompson, etc), you loved his writing or you hated it. I had a lot of trouble getting through Infinite Jest, but enjoyed it nonetheless. I've been a subscriber to Harpers for more years than I can remember, and he appeared there often. His essays were always excellent. As for the interview on NPR, I am not surprised he'd come off as a downer. His writing (and probably his life as well) was focused far beneath the bright, glossy suface of things...
