David Foster Wallace an Apparent Suicide

snydeq passes along the news that David Foster Wallace was found dead Friday at his home in Claremont, California. Wallace's wife found her husband had hanged himself when she returned home at 9:30 PM Friday. The novelist, essayist, and humorist, best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, was 46. Wallace had been awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in 1997.

Netcraft confirms it

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - David Foster Wallace was found dead in his Claremont home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the American community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to Society and true American patriotism. Truly an American icon.

NAFTA

[gyrogeerloose]

I've referred to NAFTA as "The Sin of O.N.A.N." ever since reading Infinite Jest.

I'm sorry to hear of his passing.

Re:Very Very sad

[Malevolyn]

I guess there's not enough bridges being trip-tropped tonight.

Re:Very Very sad

[Orion Blastar]

I lost some good friends to suicide and I myself tried to kill myself when my mental illness and stress in my life became too much for me to take anymore. Part of that was trolls on IWETHEY, Kuro5hin, etc telling me to go kill myself or the "shotgun mouthwash now!" comments. I even had coworkers and managers telling me to kill myself. This sort of abuse happens to mentally ill people, and in some mental states we actually do it or try to kill ourselves.

Once or twice I had to fake my suicide online via an alt.suicide.holiday to get my suicidal thoughts out of my head. People still give me a hard time for that as well.

Friends of mine that killed themselves had anonymous people calling them on the phone at 3am waking them up, and the very same thing happened to me and my family. For those doing that sort of thing please quit. I do not want to kill myself.

I just got over panic attacks due to a big storm in my area that knocked out power, phones, and caused some flooding. I am not in the mood for people to start calling mentally ill people as egomaniacs, or selfish. We are not sociopaths, as sociopaths feel no pain, most of us mentally ill people kill ourselves because we are in great pain and don't want to suffer anymore. If you've never been suicidal in your life, kindly shut the F up about those of us who have been suicidal or had friends and family that killed themselves.

It never ends, ever since 2002 I've been on disability because of this stuff, and people still won't leave me alone. They still want me to kill myself and I changed my phone numbers and email addresses and I still get harassed. Kindly quit, I refuse to kill myself because some anonymous trolls decided to troll me in real life and at my work and at my home and even dragged my friends and family members into it.

Re:NAFTA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you're a hit at parties.

Re:Suicidal Hanging?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. I completely agree. I tried that last weekend, and it didn't work. But neither did a shotgun to the temple the weekend before that or jumping off the golden gate bridge the week before that. This weekend I drove a wooden stake through my own heart and woke up feeling quite refreshed.

Are you suggesting that I should just listen to some loud music instead? And if so, which kind works best? Country music seemed to work well in Mars Attacks, so I'll try that next weekend.

I guess living is...

[Bemopolis]

...a supposedly fun thing he'll never do again.

Re:good ridence

[Concerned Onlooker]

So, now we know. Karl Rove reads Slashdot.