Infinite Jest

FourthBase · Post by **FourthBase** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 8:22 pm

May he haunt the world.

redsock · Post by **redsock** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 8:54 pm

It's true. LA Times has the story.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 1856.story

***
David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 tome "Infinite Jest," was found dead last night at his home in Claremont, according to the Claremont Police Department. He was 46.

Jackie Morales, a records clerk at the Claremont Police Department, said Wallace's wife called police at 9:30 p.m. Friday saying she had returned home to find her husband had hanged himself.
***

After posting here last night, I went home and was reading bits of IJ at like 1:30 last night -- Gately's difficulties with God and the higher power thing in AA and how the whole thing works.

Fuck.

barracuda · Post by **barracuda** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:48 am

I never figured him to pass on in the Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland.

FourthBase · Post by **FourthBase** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:56 am

barracuda wrote:I never figured him to pass on in the Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland.

It's possible that today we are in the equivalent of YDAU, actually.

I never figured him to be the type who'd commit suicide.
But then again, thinking back to how much of it is in the book...
I don't know. I just don't understand why he would do it.
As much as I love him, I'll hate him for committing suicide.

redsock · Post by **redsock** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 7:38 pm

The latest issue of The New Yorker has some new DFW fiction, from a novel he had been working on since the publication of IJ. It's true.

Turns out that some of what he had published before his death -- Good People, Compliance Branch -- were from this novel.

DT Max has a lengthy story -- amazingly informative and crushingly sad -- which includes a ton of quotes from Wallace's agent and his widow (her first interview). Also emails and letters from and to Frazen, DeLillo, etc.

Little, Brown will publish the unfinished novel -- The Pale King -- next spring.

Fiction:
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/featur ... on_wallace

Article:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009 ... a_fact_max

Also 2 marked-up manuscript pages:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/b ... llace.html

redsock · Post by **redsock** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 7:58 pm

More info in this Washington Post story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 50_pf.html