Spring Break
Acclaimed author commits suicide
by Andrea Fineman
Managing Editor
Arts | 9/16/08
Posted online at 8:49 PM EST on 9/15/08
The postmodern writer David Foster Wallace was found dead in his home of an apparent suicide by hanging Friday night. Wallace, who taught creative writing at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., is perhaps best known for his over 1000-page nonlinear epic novel Infinite Jest, but his body of work includes such diverse media as the personal essay (perhaps most famously "A?Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," written originally for ?Harper's Magazine, about the phenomenon of the vacation cruise) and other nonfiction.
According to the New York Times, the Claremont, Calif. police reported that Wallace was found dead Friday night by his wife, Karen Green, who had just returned home.
Wallace's writings, while popular among a certain sector of the general reading public, were also adopted by academia and critics.
"All I can say is that his death is a terrible loss," said Prof. Caren Irr (ENG), who assigned "A Supposedly Fun Thing" in her class "American Literature from 1900-2000." "Personally, what I?have admired most in his writing and perhaps will admire more from here on out is the way he draws a tender irony out of otherwise earnest observations."
David Foster Wallace, referred to by fans simply as DFW, was born in Ithaca, N.Y. but grew up in central Illinois, as many Wallace fans know from reading his personal essays. Both of his parents were professors, his father a philosophy professor and his mother an English professor.
Wallace, who graduated in 1985 with a double major in English and philosophy from Amherst College, received a master's in?fine arts in creative writing in 1987 from the University of Arizona and then moved to Boston to pursue graduate studies in philosophy at Harvard, which he never completed. The author had intended to pursue a career in philosophy or mathematics-his senior thesis in philosophy at Amherst, concerning modal logic, won the Gale Kennedy Memorial Prize, awarded by Amherst to philosophy majors for distinguished honors theses. After enrolling in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of Arizona, however, his novel The Broom of the System gained significant enough praise that Wallace chose to write full-time instead.
According to the New York Times, the Claremont, Calif. police reported that Wallace was found dead Friday night by his wife, Karen Green, who had just returned home.
Wallace's writings, while popular among a certain sector of the general reading public, were also adopted by academia and critics.
"All I can say is that his death is a terrible loss," said Prof. Caren Irr (ENG), who assigned "A Supposedly Fun Thing" in her class "American Literature from 1900-2000." "Personally, what I?have admired most in his writing and perhaps will admire more from here on out is the way he draws a tender irony out of otherwise earnest observations."
David Foster Wallace, referred to by fans simply as DFW, was born in Ithaca, N.Y. but grew up in central Illinois, as many Wallace fans know from reading his personal essays. Both of his parents were professors, his father a philosophy professor and his mother an English professor.
Wallace, who graduated in 1985 with a double major in English and philosophy from Amherst College, received a master's in?fine arts in creative writing in 1987 from the University of Arizona and then moved to Boston to pursue graduate studies in philosophy at Harvard, which he never completed. The author had intended to pursue a career in philosophy or mathematics-his senior thesis in philosophy at Amherst, concerning modal logic, won the Gale Kennedy Memorial Prize, awarded by Amherst to philosophy majors for distinguished honors theses. After enrolling in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of Arizona, however, his novel The Broom of the System gained significant enough praise that Wallace chose to write full-time instead.
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