Saturday evening, the news came through on FriendFeed that iconic author David Foster Wallace had died, apparently by his own hands, on Friday night, September 12. The friend who posted the news was a huge fan and others followed with expressions of genuine sadness and shock. I had taken several stabs at Wallace's fiction, but always gave up, feeling distinctly unmo and unclever enough. Even so, I grieved along with DFW's fans.
Why am I writing about the passing of one of the most influential authors of our time if he's never been on my Must Read list? Even though his writing was anthemic to Team C & I (Cynicism and Irony), it's not at all how I experienced David Foster Wallace. I guess I'd like you to know that he was just a really nice guy. Dave taught at Illinois State University in Normal, and lived in my hometown, Bloomington, IL until he left to take an endowed creative writing chair at Pomona College in Claremont, CA in 2002. I became acquainted with Dave through a coworker who was close to him as a friend, and who also did a lot of research for him. Even though I don't think I ever formally met him, I do a have a vivid image of him at the reference desk, scruffy and bandanaed, talking to my friend.
When my friend was in the process of a cross-country move, she asked if I could take one of Dave's requests, as she was without internet access and up to her waist with U-Haul boxes. I was pretty excited about helping out Perhaps the Most Influential Writer of Our Generation, and in no small measure intimidated, for fear of a sudden reference skills failure. Who wants to look incompetent to a Macarthur Genius? As is, I performed adequately (phew!) and was rewarded with an acknowledgment in Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity. Unfortunately, as difficult impossible as Infinite Jest was for me, this book was all alien script, given my distinct unmathiness. Regardless, I'm pretty proud about being even a minuscule footnote in such a rich sliver of literary history. All of our transactions were via email, and I was very surprised to find him a charming, chatty, gracious and warm correspondent.
After my friend got settled, I was retired as a reference pinch hitter to the literati. Maybe a year or so after that, I decided that I wanted to take a writing course at ISU and was sort of thinking about an MFA program. Dave was in the English department and teaching a 200-level fiction course. Of course I wanted to take a class with him, but he said that I would be frustrated and way out of my element, and suggested I start at the 300-level. Several weeks into the class, I was glad to have taken his advice and was particularly pleased that he passed along that another student in the class, a friend of his, was impressed with my work. I know that it wasn't Dave saying he was impressed with my work, but he trusted his friend's opinion. As a teacher and a writer, he had to know that this casual comment would be a great motivator for me, and it was.
I'm still slightly mortified about the one time I had a conversation of any length with Dave. By that time, he had left for his new teaching gig, and my friend, who had relocated to Florida, was back in town for a funeral. Despite the sad occasion for her visit, we had a small party, . In keeping with the theme, let's call it a wake. Which we used as an excuse to pass a bottle (okay two bottles) of tequila around and around. Somewhere around midnight, both deep in our cups (aka "grunk"), my friend decided to call Dave. Apparently more incapacitated than me and unable to string a sentence together, she passed the phone to me. I did my best, a semi-lucid drunk talking to a recovering alcoholic, thinking, "this is both inappropriate and incredibly embarrassing." But, you know what? Dave was as gracious and kind on the phone as he was via email and wound down the conversation by tucking me in and gently stepping back, like a parent leaving a toddler's room at bedtime, wishing me a good evening, but making it clear that it was bedtime.
Dave deserved such a gentle end to his day on Friday, but who knows why he felt that alone. People with chronic, clinical depression become so adept at masking that they frequently give those around them little or no opportunity to help.
Recently, another friend started talking about a suicide plan. You hear something like that and think that it's just venting during a crappy patch of life. We all have bad, bad days, but clinical, black dog depression is not something that's going to get better with a Hallmark "coping" card and a hug. I knew that my friend had cut his partner out of any discussions about how serious his depression was and decided it was my responsibility to put his partner back in the loop. I called and emailed his partner and shared every detail I knew, even if it meant making my friend angry. He did make an attempt, but people were around to intervene and get him help. My friend is alive, and we're still friends. If you value your relationship with someone like this, learn the signs and don't be afraid to intervene, even if it means losing a friendship.
