David Foster Wallace

The death of David Foster Wallace is sad. I had just recently reread his essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" in preparation for a first cruise that was a family obligation, or opportunity. That trip has since been canceled but I enjoyed reading the essay again and essentially revisiting why I have not yet been on a cruise.

After almost 48 hours of just the information that it was a suicide by hanging it has now become clear through his father that an issue with depression that had been managed by medication had become unmanageable in the last year. The medication no longer worked, no substitute was found and electo-shock treatment over the summer had not worked. David Foster Wallace could not see any answer and take the pain any longer.

Again this is sad, and disheartening to me. He was by all accounts a good sincere person, a darn good junior state and college tennis player, a good student, and a gentle and interesting person to be around. His fiction could be manically brilliant or obsessive and his journalistic work was humorous, insightful, and self conscious. He was a talented writer and there was no one quite like him.

Peace, God Bless, Live on, too bad too soon