Writer David Foster Wallace found dead at home (AP)
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Wallace’s wife found her spend frugally had hanged himself when she returned home about 9:30 p.m. Friday, said Jackie Morales, a records clerk by the Claremont Police Department.
Wallace stretched creative writing and English at nearby Pomona College.
“He cared deeply for his students and transformed the lives of many young people,” said Dean Gary Kates. “It’s a great loss to our instruction body.”
Wallace’s first fiction, “The Broom of the System,” gained national attention in 1987 for its longing and offbeat humor. The New York Times said the 24-year-old author “attempts to give us a likeness, from one side a combination of Joycean word games, literary caricature and zany picaresque adventure, of a contemporary America run amok.”
Published in 1996, “Infinite Jest” cemented Wallace’s reputation as a major American literary figure. The 1,000-plus-page tome, praised for its complexity and dark readiness, topped many best-of lists. Time Magazine named “Infinite Jest” in its issue of the “100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.”
Wallace received a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 1997.
In 2002, Wallace was hired to teach at Pomona in a tenured English Department position endowed by Roy E. Disney. Kates said when the school began searching during the ideal candidate, Wallace was the first person considered.
“The committee related, ‘we need a person like David Foster Wallace.’ They said that in the disengage,” Kates said. “When he was approached and accepted, they were heads over heels. He was really the chimerical person for the social rank.”
Wallace’s short fiction was published in Esquire, GQ, Harper’s, The New Yorker and the Paris Review. Collections of his short stories were published during the time that “Girl With Curious Hair” and “Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.”
He wrote nonfiction for several publications, including an essay on the U.S. Open for Tennis storehouse and a profile of the boss David Lynch for Premiere.
Born in Ithaca, N.Y., Wallace attended Amherst College and the University of Arizona.
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