Perhaps it was inevitable that the strange curse suffered by so many great writers should strike so close to home— at least, as close as my coffee table, where Infinite Jest resides, or my desk, stacked with books of David Foster Wallace’s short stories. Even my memo board is filled with words given to me by D.F.W, scribbled on post-it notes: “You‘ve got to discipline yourself to talk out of the part of you that loves the thing, loves what you‘re working on. Maybe that just plain loves.”
News of his suicide came as a shock. He hanged himself on Friday night at his home in Claremont, California. He was 46, a professor of creative writing at Pomona College, and a literary revolutionist.