The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23638511/the_lost_years__last_days_of_david_foster_wallace/print ^ | DAVID LIPSKY

[ventanax5]

He was the greatest writer of his generation - and also its most tormented. In the wake of his tragic suicide, his friends and family reveal the lifelong struggle of a beautiful mind ...

Wallace's need was simpler: cheap space, for writing. He had been researching for months, haunting rehab facilities and halfway houses, taking quiet note of voices and stories, people who had fallen into the gaps like him. "I got very assertive research- and finagle-wise," he said. "I spent hundreds of hours at three halfway houses. It turned out you could just sit in the living room — nobody is as gregarious as somebody who has recently stopped using drugs

[freedumb2003]

Am I a literary dunce for asking “who?”

[Rudder]

Is this guy a relative of yours?

[Freemeorkillme]

"What I saw was, 'Jesus, it's the same thing all over again.' I'd started late, showed tremendous promise — and the minute I felt the implications of that promise, it caved in. Because see, by this time, my ego's all invested in the writing. It's the only thing I've gotten food pellets from the universe for. So I feel trapped: 'Uh-oh, my five years is up, I've gotta move on.' But I didn't want to move on."

These words are about as close as he got to what he was searching for. The Truth who makes sense of it all. Sad. The world idolizes unfulfilled quests of the lost but ridicules and scorns those who would strive to hear the words "in whom I am well pleased" when standing before the Father.

Jesus said that was to be expected, though, didn't He?

[gussiefinknottle]

oh, this makes me want to cry.

[ikka]

He wrote what is now, an interesting article on McCain’s 2000 campaign for Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18420304/the_weasel_twelve_monkeys_and_the_shrub/1

[B-Chan]

He was a figure in literary circles, famous among readers of American fiction of the sort that plan their lives by the New York Times Sunday Review of Books, but a genuine genius (a summa and a MacArthur Fellow) and, from what I've read of him, a fairly decent and perceptive guy. I never read his works myself (not my cup of tea; I'm a Dostoevsky man) but he was undoubtedly a talent.

He was also a person who died of a disease that kills by inches: clinical depression. As a sufferer myself, I can easily imagine what this poor soul must have endured before he finally broke. Despite his suicide, I hope in the justice and mercy of God for the eternal destiny of his soul.

Depression KILLS PEOPLE, folks. It's not a character flaw or a sign of weakness — it's a neurological disease. People suffering from depression deserve your concern and care; if you know a person suffering the signs of depression, please see to it that they receive the medical attention they need and the personal support you can give them.

[Malesherbes]

I actually hadn’t heard of him before his suicide, but then I became curious and bought “Infinite Jest.” It is probably a work of genius, remarkable use of language, but I have to take it in small doses.

[Tainan]

Touching article. Thanks for the link.