-->

• Writer David Foster Wallace committed suicide on September 12, 2008, by hanging himself. David Foster Wallace was a famed author of both essays and works of fiction, his most notorious work being the 1996 1000-plus page novel Infinite Jest. Rolling Stone is doing a full feature profile on Wallace in its October 30, 2008 issue, which is also available to read online.Rolling Stone: /the_lost_years__last_days_of_david_foster_wallace/2 The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace (October 30, 2008)

  Wallace's wife Karen Green discovered his body in their Claremont, California home and called the police at 9:30 PM.LA Times: Writer David Foster Wallace found dead (September 13, 2008) Wallace was 46, and had taken a term off from his teaching job at Pomona College.Times Online: David Foster Wallace Commits Suicide (September 14, 2008)

• Fast Facts

  1. Found dead at home in Claremont, California
  2. Found Friday September 12, 2008
  3. Wife Karen Green found him, called police at 9: 30 PM
  4. Committed suicide by hanging himself
  5. Was 46
  6. Taught English and Creative Writing at Pomona College
  7. Received MacArthur "genius" grant in 1997LA Times: Writer David Foster Wallace found dead (September 13, 2008)
  8. Born in Ithaca, New York

• Rolling Stone Feature

  After the sudden death of Wallace in September of 2008, the popular music magazine the Rolling Stone is doing a full feature profile of the author in its October 30th issue.Gawker: David Foster Wallace's Early Years at Amherst (October 17, 2008) Entitled The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace it will highlight David Foster Wallace's life through interviews of his family and friends that reveal his troubled mind.Rolling Stone: /the_lost_years__last_days_of_david_foster_wallace/2 The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace (October 30, 2008)

• Works of David Foster Wallace

  1. Broom of the System (1987)
  2. Girl with Curious Hair (1989)
  3. Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race in the Urban Present (1990)
  4. Infinite Jest (1996)
  5. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (1997)
  6. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999)
  7. Everything and More (2003)
  8. Oblivion (2004)
  9. Consider the Lobster (2005)

• David Foster Wallace Quotes

  -"You'll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do."WikiQuote: Quote from Infinite Jest
  

  -"An ad that pretends to be art is -- at absolute best -- like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you."WikiQuote: Quote from A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
  

  -"And I'm not saying that television is vulgar and dumb because the people who compose the Audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests."WikiQuote: Quote from E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
  

• David Foster Wallace's writing style

  David Foster Wallace was notorious for his very particular writing voice, which was darkly satirical, verbose, fantastical and littered with complicated technical references. His works often referenced mathematics, chemistry, economics and other arcane discourses. In his New York Times review of Infinite Jest in 1996, Jay Mcinerney described Wallace’s style thusly: “All of this might -- and sometimes does -- feel cartoonish in the extreme. But this skeleton of satire is fleshed out with several domestically scaled narratives and masses of hyperrealistic quotidian detail. The overall effect is something like a sleek Vonnegut chassis wrapped in layers of post-millennial Zola.”The New York Times: ‘’Infinite Jest’’ Book Review (March 3, 1996)

• Related Pages on Mahalo

  David Foster Wallace | Karen Green | Infinite Jest | Broom of the System | Girl with Curious Hair | Signifying Rappers | A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again | Brief Interviews with Hideous Men | Everything and More | Oblivion | Consider the Lobster | Rolling Stone | Danny Philbin

Categories

• View History
• Discuss on the Message Board
• Embed this Page
• Share this page