David Foster Wallace Dies: A Brief Lament

(photo of David Foster Wallace by Steve Liss of Time Life Pictures)

I have to acknowledge the recent loss of writer David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments), who was found hung to death as an "apparent" suicide last Friday (on September 12--my birthday) at his home in Claremont, California. There are lots of articles about him out there already, so I'm not going to say much but just link to some of them. He was a writer I thought a lot of and felt a strong affinity with (he was also a tennis fan and former player, after all), although I have yet to tackle all of his brilliant opus Infinite Jest (over 1,000 pages). I do have a copy of it sitting by my desk that I plan to consume in its entirety soon. Over the years I have read and really enjoyed his essays and stories though, which were always intelligent, slightly off-beat or full of surprises and compelling.

Here are a few links to further reading:
Exuberant Riffs on a Land Run Amok (from NY Times)
By Michiko Kakutani

Wallace Invented 'New Style, New Comedy' (from npr.org)
by David Lipsky

The Journalism of David Foster Wallace (from Time)
By Josh Tyrangiel

The Salon Interview with David Foster Wallace
By Laura Miller

Good People (a 2007 short story published in The New Yorker)
By David Foster Wallace

Link