David Foster Wallace

“It doesn’t pay to try,

All the smart boys know why,

It doesn’t mean I didn’t try,

I just never know why.”

- Johnny Thunders ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory’.

September 12, 2009 marks the one year anniversary of the death of author David Foster Wallace. This date may be easily committed to memory, as it falls one day after the anniversary of the September 11th 2001 tragedy. Those who were, let’s say under the age of 30 or so, approach life in America with a different slant due to the crystallization of the memories born on 9/11. And although the world may not have been traumatized in exactly the same manner by David Foster Wallace’s suicide, the feeling of loss one felt was parallel. If you are now age 60 or more, you may have felt the same loss as readers of Fitzgerald or Hemmingway after hearing about their deaths. A great author suddenly gone for seemingly no good reason is a defeat whose impact can only be accounted for anthropologically; it will continue to shape people for years to come.

The greatest act of self promotion that any talented artist can undertake is to die young. Nothing makes what you say, think or write more indispensable than an audience knowing that nothing else will ever emerge from the same source. This may be a callas statement, but by no means is it intended to be. And this is why – this is the important part to remember; the artist must possess talent. Nobody cries for the B actor who overdoses in a trailer, but if someone had something more to offer the public, the law of supply and demand becomes sharply inverted in the artists favor.

It is unfortunate that David Foster Wallace falls into this category.

By all accounts, Wallace was a young literary wonder in the same vein as Orson Wells. But Wallace also had the black demons of a Russian novelist. He blossomed early as a writer. His first published novel was his senior year thesis for Amherst College (What did you do your senior year at college?). And he was also a competitive tennis player. Not professional level, but semi-pro. It seems that he was able to straddle the word of academics and athletics in a manner not necessarily seen by those growing up during the 1970’s. Such geek/athletes are more contemporary now. During Wallace’s life, this hybrid existence, with its demands to keep a foot in both worlds simultaneously, must have proved to be taxing for his emerging identity, and this rift no doubt influenced his art (”Jest” shifts back and forth between physical and intellectual themes constantly, like a tennis match itself, always waiting to see which side will win the match).

Wallace also suffered from lifelong depression and anxiety (watch video clips of him on-line and he looks like an overworked engine ready to explode). He was hospitalized at least once for such conditions. At one point, he became a substance abuser (alcohol, maybe something else, probably at least something else). The addiction(s) was/were overcome, but he never spoke/wrote about any of these issues directly; never in the first person. He never became a PSA for a cause, a “Look at what I’ve had to overcome, you can too!” type of author. His fiction was how he chose to wash his dirty linen, and his private life was private. And dark. But he loved animals.

Here is a list of some of the books he had published at the time of his death:

• The Broom of the System. New York, Viking, 1987.
• Infinite Jest. Boston, Little Brown, 1996.
• Girl with Curious Hair. New York, Penguin, 1988.
• Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Boston, Little Brown, 1999.
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments. Boston, Little Brown, 1997.
• [Contributor], Innovations: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Fiction, edited by Robert L. McLaughlin. Normal, Illinois, Dalkey Archive Press, 1998.
• Consider the Lobster. Boston, Little Brown, 2005.

More books are being published now, obviously.

One of the worst fates to befall any writer is to be emulated past realistic expectations. This is to say, to have a mythology placed around your work so lofty it fences off people from approaching it. Or at least approaching it with an open mind, as open as it can be. Wallace’s work is in danger of falling just such victim. Although “Infinite Jest” was a bestseller, its size and themes are intimidating. Orson Wells was used in comparison earlier because he too underwent a type of excommunication from the public despite enormous talent. While Wells started strong and then fizzled out into obscurity, Wallace blossomed young and reached the crest of his fame just as he died. Wallace’s work, because his fame is now largely posthumous, runs a similar risk of obscurity. 10 years from now, will anyone care? Now that he is burnt out will he fade away?

This could turn sappy now and say that the world lost a giant when Wallace died. It could become cautionary and ask that you don’t let your babies grow up to pen novels. It could turn celebratory and ask that you feel privileged to read the work of this man whose talent and impress go beyond any poor attempts at secondary description. But, all in all, none of those statements are true.

A year after Wallace’s death is a short time, and only time will tell how well he stands out in the literary pantheon, or how well he holds onto his well earned significance as time changes. Some passages of his novels are dated. His context of thought doesn’t always hold. At times, he wrote in a style deliberately difficult to read. His work can be imperfect.

But his work is art. It is literature and its depth is bottomless. His ability to share the mind of his characters (and ultimately himself) is nothing short of magic. Holy magic, not cheap street performance. Wallace was an artist the world may have to wait a long time to see the likes of again. He has been gone exactly one year today.

Cover of The Broom of the System: A Novel