In These Times Staff Members React To David Foster Wallace Suicide

Dan Dineen, In These Times Bookkeeper: A wordsmith of the highest degree, David Foster Wallace's death is a massive blow to contemporary literature. His works are challenging and rewarding, but above all illuminating. Perhaps the most striking thing about Wallace is his extraordinary power of observation--which he uses to shed light on both the grand and miniscule, and was equally present in his fiction and non-fiction--and which often left the reader in awe of the acuity of his vision. This attribute, along with his mastery of language, created a voice that could present and comment on the complexities of the modern world with both cynicism and tenderness. It is a voice that will be missed. Jeremy Gantz, In These Times Web Editor: A terrible thing to learn, that such a bright light has snuffed itself out. I've only read his essays, my favorite of which is "Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise" (re-published as the lead essay of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again). I will never, never take a cruise because of its sharp wit and hilarious condemnations. And no one wrote about tennis with more passion and intelligence. Now I can finally excuse myself from the world for a week to read Infinite Jest. What a sad reason.