CLAREMONT, Calif., Sept. 14, 2008
Writer David Foster Wallace Dies At 46
Author Of "Infinite Jest" Found Dead At His Calif. Home
-
David Foster Wallace, author of "Infinite Jest," was found dead at age 46. (Back Bay Books)
Wallace's wife found her husband had hanged himself when she returned home about 9:30 p.m. Friday, said Jackie Morales, a records clerk with the Claremont Police Department.
Wallace taught creative writing and English at nearby Pomona College.
"He cared deeply for his students and transformed the lives of many young people," said Dean Gary Kates. "It's a great loss to our teaching faculty."
Wallace's first novel, "The Broom of the System," gained national attention in 1987 for its ambition and offbeat humor. The New York Times said the 24-year-old author "attempts to give us a portrait, through a combination of Joycean word games, literary parody and zany picaresque adventure, of a contemporary America run amok."
Published in 1996, "Infinite Jest" cemented Wallace's reputation as a major American literary figure. The 1,000-plus page tome, praised for its complexity and dark wit, topped many best of lists. Time Magazine named "Infinite Jest" in its issue of the "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005."
Wallace received a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 1997.
In 2002, Wallace was hired to teach at Pomona in a tenured English Department position endowed by Roy E. Disney. Kates said when the school began searching for the ideal candidate, Wallace was the first person considered.
"The committee said, 'We need a person like David Foster Wallace.' They said that in the abstract," Kates said. "When he was approached and accepted, they were heads over heels. He was really the ideal person for the position."
Wallace's short works were published in Esquire, GQ, Harper's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review and in the collections "Girl With Curious Hair" and "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men." He wrote non-fiction for a number of publications, including an essay on the U.S. Open for Tennis magazine and a profile of the director David Lynch for Premiere.
Born in Ithaca, New York, Wallace attended Amherst College and the University of Arizona.
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
More From Entertainment
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
You can''t make someone go get help. All you can do is continue to tell them and hope to persuade them. Pretty much, they are going to do what they want. If they want to die, they do not care about those around them. To them it is a very real, and personal matter and they are not thinking of others. They do not realize how much they would hurt everyone who cares about them. They are thinking only of themselves.
What a weirdo for you to even say that. How does anyone have the right to kill, even themselves? He did not give life, he cannot not take it. Anyway, he may have cried out how bad society was, but it sounds to me like he should have gotten mental help. It''s probably society (like how he was raised) that drove him to it or he could have just been a very depressed person. Either way, there is help available. Maybe he didn''t want to live, and in that case that would be selfish of him. All the people who cared about him are left with his loss. Even you are whining.
What the HELLL is wrong with you to say something like that?He has a right to take his own life, and he accomplished more than most. Yes it is a loss and a tragedy to think what we may have lost, but he cried out from the start at how messed up our society is. America is losing its most sensitive and talented souls by the score because we are no longer worthy of their talents.
Posted by yongamerica
sick and wrong