David Foster Wallace is ACCUSED!

Did this bitch ever go to the police at the time?

I don't know, R1. I guess we'll here more now that the cat is out of the bag.

R2 I read every comment attached to her tweet and she never once mentions having gone to the police to file a report against the guy as any thinking person would. I really don't understand this whole thing of waiting years to come out with this and to do it on social media instead of to the authorities. She claims to have letters of confession from the guy and seems to be more upset that her story only got two lines in a biography.

Has anyone read LIT, or any of her stuff? I’m going to check her out.

DFW had a reputation for being a misogynistic asshole. He was always out of bounds. So this news? It doesn’t surprise me, and I believe her. He fucked over plenty of people during his short stay on earth.

here = hear

His books are irritating as hell anyway. Crazy ass violent criminal. Time to erase that POS.

I read The Liar's Club, recommend.

Thanks, R7.

Infinite Jest was a fucking nightmare to get through.

Good or should I say excellent writers, are usually really flawed people. 9/10, you’re dealing with a very fucked up individual.

If we all stopped reading the stuff written by assholes, we’d have nothing left to read. At least nothing worth reading.

I’m not defending any man or woman, nor am I justifying abusive behavior, but let’s not pretend that some of the best writers who have ever lived, were angels.

DFW’s essays are the best things he wrote. He was brilliant but really troubled. Infinite Jest should have been 400 pp shorter.

Oh his book on infinity is also quite god,

good

Hanging himself in a place where his wife would find him is the ultimate aggressive act.

R12, I think a murder-suicide would have been a tad more aggressive.

R4, Lit's a good book and so are her others. Of the three, Lit was probably my favorite.

Her story sounds legit.

Just imagine the list of micro-aggressions

Jesus Christ, let's just dig him up so she can beat him like a pinata. This #metoo thing is getting beyond annoying.

[quote]Hanging himself in a place where his wife would find him is the ultimate aggressive act.

It's the ultimate passive-aggressive act. Not exactly noble.

R18, not only that, but she had just entered the house, after driving his parents to the airport!

What does she want at this point? To put him in prison? Gee, I guess it's too bad he's been dead for ten years.

Talk about beating a dead horse.

I didn't know they were a couple

I’ve read all of her books. I like them. She had a screwed up life and is pretty screwed up herself - though give her credit for her success. Interesting because she jokes about the DFW stalking in her books. Not sure if she altered it for the book to make it seem jokey - or if she altered it for this tweet to get herself press.

ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!!!

It's her experience, she can share it if she wants, R23.

[quote] But DFW was white

Huh? How is that relevant? And isn't she white herself?

[quote] It's her experience, she can share it if she wants, [R23].

And I and other people can judge her for sharing it if we want, r24.

I imagine he wasn't proud of his behavior either. Of course, she shouldn't have had to live in fear caused by another person. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that she would be lucky to have 1/16 of the writing talent he possessed. He was brilliant and utterly unique. His talent doesn't excuse his actions, but his actions also don't diminish his brilliance either. As a culture, we seem to struggle understanding dichotomies like that. We want everything to be simple and black and white and it just isn't that straightforward.

She said something because DFW's fanboys and biographer chose to downplay Wallace's violence in their relationship and in his relationships with his other girlfriends. Maybe have some empathy for what it must be like to see the world continue to worship someone as a saintly guru while ignoring all evidence of people he did hurt and what his life was actually like.

No one involved is saying to burn his books, just face that he was a real person who did a lot of bad things in his life along with his creative work. DFW is gone, what's left are bloodsuckers who want to use the popularity of his This is Water speech and his cultural cachet to make money off of the cult of Wallace and protect the legacy they want for him over the reality.

[quote]It's her experience, she can share it if she wants, [[R23]].

[quote]And I and other people can judge her for sharing it if we want, [R24].

Since you are not fan of #metoo, R20/23 it's expected that you would.

I appreciate her story, but this is - literally - beating a dead horse.

The fact that #metoo hasn't gone after JFK is astounding.

[quote] Maybe have some empathy for what it must be like to see the world continue to worship someone as a saintly guru while ignoring all evidence of people he did hurt and what his life was actually like.

Oh boo hoo hoo.

No one sees him as 'saintly" unless they know nothing about him.

i'm saving my empathy for the starving in Darfur, not some entitled college professor with her own trunkload of personal problems.

She's not the first to accuse him. I think she spoke about this on Fresh Air long before #metoo movement.. It's not a real leap to imagine DFW would be capable of all that.

It is puzzling why she didn't go to the cops though, as it seems she didn't.

She downplayed the DFW issue in her own books and made it sound like stalking was funny. So no she does not get to say and join METOO - because she contributed to the problem by pushing the idea that a stalker is funny and that she was kinda flattered by the attention of a younger man. Just like the actresses who played the game and then said they were the victim. Makes it really hard to create a narrative when too many stories are told in different ways at different times. This is why people refuse to take abuse seriously.

She waited until he was dead and less likely to sue for defamation or defend himself in an amazingly well-written piece. What does she want? He killed himself a decade ago. She won; she's still alive. Let him lie and enjoy his work. This seems like an attention grab to make herself more relevant.

Writers often work through experiences and emotions in their work. Since she talked about the relationship, but made it seem funny, perhaps it was to her at the time. It's only after the constant #metoo drumbeat that she looks at it again - using a different literary theory perhaps - and sees it in a different light. Then she decides that's the reality. Uh huh.

And that "but DfW was white" throwaway at the end is such bullshit. She's trying to hit all the buttons so she seems woke and a victim at the same time. Such bullshit.

Ugh, and she's a poet, too.

Straight fanboys LOVE DFW.

... and here's her post from last week. She's caught up in feminist and gender theory yep. Along the way she may have forgotten it's a theory. And the name dropping is obnoxious.

"On my odd little NYC block just ran into a) Jonathan Franzen b) Malcolm Gladwell when I was en route to see c) Philip Roth. Why cldnt I run into a) Zadie Smith and b) Hilary Mantel en route to see c) Toni Morrison?The lords of literature reminding me it's still a man's world...."

R38 that's bullshit, I like his writing and I'm gay. His personal essays really spoke to me.

r35 I don't say let him lie, she has every right to say whatever she wants about him. And people should have every right to criticize her for it. As r34 said, people like her contributed to the problem. She was not a lowly grad student in his orbit, either.

DFW was one of the first examples of the smart, socially inept, borderline ASD white males who are told they're geniuses at a young age. They ride this for years into adulthood without really maturing, as artists or as people. Once they come out of the helicopter parented, mother cocoon, they have a hard time with real life unless they find like-minded people who want to be in their orbit for various reasons.

He is one of the most over-rated writers because literary circles were and are the domain of rich, white males. Unfortunately, he was born too late to have a really good, really strong editor who had the leeway to rein him in.

[quote]He was brilliant and utterly unique.

Not everyone shares this opinion (in fact I think fewer and fewer people do these days), so I think this could hurt his reputation more than you realize.

the metoo movement really triggers dlers; pathetic

I would have sworn we had DFW gossip about this some time around a decade ago. Nothing about a little kid I don't think, but that he had stalked and hassled women on a regular basis.

Who?

[quote] What does she want? He killed himself a decade ago. She won; she's still alive. Let him lie and enjoy his work. This seems like an attention grab to make herself more relevant.

That's absolutely ridiculous and I have no idea why people say something like that. She could have gotten more positive attention with other lies, and it would be career suicide to say she has written proof of this if she really didn't. She won't make much from revealing this, and may not make anything -- if she'd wanted money she wouldn't just blurt it out on Twitter, she'd write about it and get the full book tour experience.

This immediate jump to "these broads are lying about innocent men just to cash in" is beyond bizarre. It makes no sense.

She seems to have alluded to violence in her poems several years ago.

r46 They never said she was lying. You projected that into the statement.

It's not about the money. It's about the attention. And she's mad that in a pre-#metoo world, her accusation didn't become the big story about DFW instead of I dunno, the rest of his life and his contribution to literature. She got a few lines' mention, but she wanted a CHAPTER, or the book.

She also wrote in a nonfiction piece about the interaction. It's nonfiction, it doesn't mean it's fact but it should be MOSTLY true. So was she lying then, or lying now, when he's dead and can't defend himself?

The long hair doesn't look good .

r49 he looks like this now, so no worries

I am not a fan of people who hit WW on a post just to get your attention, especially when their reply is all about how an entire movement is wrong because it's nothing but women who lie for attention.

Seriously, who would bother arguing against "she could have gotten more positive attention with other lies" by saying "it's all about attention"?

That's not even the first time today someone has misread something I said in hopes of starting a fight, and it's only 7am. Tiresome.

Ladies: no one is claiming rape/assault/stalking is okay or denying that men have used their power to abuse women. It has happened and continues to happen all the time. But...

When you wait decades to say anything, until your abuser is long dead, writing a book, running for political office, etc., people are going to have suspicions about the veracity of your story. Furthermore, by not saying anything, you allow others to be victimized.

When something happens, report it immediately. Blab to the press and social media all you want. But when you wait 20, 30, 40 years...accept that people are going to question you and your motives.

You are not doing the movement any favors with your years of silence and complicity.

Ima cutta bitch who don't give me mine!

#metoo

AND he always wore that fucking bandana!

Well, there's untreated mental illness in there. Didn't end well.

The bandana was because of neverending, profuse perspiration. He wrote about it in one of his novels (one of his characters has this problem).

Junot and DFW buried next to Charlie Rose and Harvey Weinstein.

Yes, R58. IIRC that was a reaction to one of the meds he was taking for his very severe mental issues. Speaking of Charlie Rose there's a really great interview with DFW and Franzen back 20 years or so. Really interesting. Whatever you think of DFW his intelligence and extreme self-consciousness are pretty obvious.

[quote] She said something because DFW's fanboys and biographer chose to downplay Wallace's violence in their relationship and in his relationships with his other girlfriends

He was a piece of abusive shit, but because he could write well, he got a pass.

[quote] This immediate jump to "these broads are lying about innocent men just to cash in" is beyond bizarre. It makes no sense.

It's Datalounge. The one with the penis could be shriveled and covered with frog skin and would still win out over a "frau," who forever and ever will be assumed to be a frivolous, duplicitous cunt.

It's weird though - these genius types who have some social issues, depression, and other things, wouldn't likely produce what they do without that set of circumstances. And yeah that's going to lead to some antisocial behavior now and then. But that doesn't remove their brilliance, or make them any less brilliant. As we as a society, now that war, famine, and poverty have been solved, move on to societal-fabric issues like the #metoo movement, does that mean we'll see less and less of these outlier weirdos who are able to produce these types of works, authentically?

r62 except for the arguments given above as to why her motives and reason for coming forward now are suspect. But I can see it's easier for you to label every comment not agreeing with some variant of "burn the witch!" as morally offensive.

R64 Except, not.

This is not the first time she's talked about this.

This IS the first time anyone has amplified it and/or gotten it into the view of the press.

r65 she's talked about it before but not in this all-horror/victim manner. She didn't start rebroadcasting it until the #metoo business happened, and previously she wrote about it as more a humorous episode than a scarring exchange. That she never contacted the police over or anyone who could do anything about it.

R60 It's a guy who likes to hear himself talk. I enjoyed parts of Infinite Jest (read about 200 pages), but this is a guy who needs to be clever. All of what he writes is self-consciously clever. And that's going to be off-putting.

Has anyone here ever read Mark Leyner?

from a 2015 interview on Fresh Air

"KARR: Well, I did notify him as I was working on the book that I was planning to write about him. He was alive. And I let him know some of the things I would cover. And I was hoping to send him pages, which he killed himself before I was able to do. So I did have a pseudonym for him. And then after he died, everyone who knew him and knew me knew it was him. So it seemed kind of disingenuous in some ways. And I did figure, frankly - I did figure, well, he's dead already. And believe me; I was still, you know, really devastated as, you know, anybody who had ever cared about him was by his suicide. Anybody who had ever talked him out of killing himself was - you know, felt like a failure, obviously, and was devastated by that death. So (laughter) David was very kindly treated. There were a lot of - if I wanted to burn David's house down, I could have done that and chose not to. And I didn't really go into what it was like in any great detail to date him, except that it was tumultuous and very short-lived.

GROSS: You do write one sentence in describing your fights. You wrote (reading) if David enters the mindset he calls black-eyed red-out, he's inclined to hurl all manner of objects.

KARR: He was violent. I will - I mean, he was violent. He became violent when he was angry. I'm not the only woman he was violent with. It was - it's common knowledge among women who dated him, you know, that he was violent. So we knew each other a long time. We were friends a long time. We got sober with a lot of the same people. But the amount of time that we dated was very short."

Oh blahblah, re: abuse.

You know what? YOU GET THE FLOCK OUT! As a wise old boss lady of mine once said when we were discussing a high-profile local divorce.."If two people stay in a doomed relationship, they're BOTH getting something out of it".

When I was quite young I had occasion to lunch with my mom and the bevy of beauties that worked under her-one of them related how she'd gone with this guy for two years, lived with him for one before they married-on their wedding night, he beat the shit out of her in a jealous rage. In the morning, he was all apologies, swearing up and down it wouldn't happen again.. She told him that it sure as hell wouldn't, she packed up and left, and filed a report with the police and a took out a restraining order.

R61, R62=Megafraus. DL unfortunately has its share of beta cuck white-knighting males. Look at ANY of the 'men' featured in the wretched film, "Dear Woman", and just imagine how little effort it would take to bend these 'straight' guys over the bathroom sink..

r69 she's saying they were drunks together, basically, but she blames him for the bad stuff that can happen.

No one's saying he was a saint, just that her coming out with this has more of a "look at me!!!" feel because some other major literary writer got #metoo'ed and she felt left out. If you read her Twitter feed, she seems to be trying to capitalize on her femaleness and reading comments, like the one about "I randomly ran into (namedrop famous writers) but why didn't I run into (namedrop female writers)? I'm reminded we still live in a man's world" brought back lots of memories of English theory classes so it's clear what lens she looks at the world through. It doesn't mean that it is reality, though. And comments like that cause me to take everything she says with a huge grain of salt because I know what view she sees things through.

They met while they were both getting sober, not while either was drinking or on drugs. It's touched upon in the bio, but I have no idea how Wallace went through his whole life being diagnosed as regular severe depression when he seemed so textbook manic-depressive.

From what I've read, manic depression is really hard to diagnose from regular depression.

Thanks for the info, dear. Dead people can't defend themselves, however, so I'll take it with a shovel full of salt. I'm sure he was a jerk like so many artists, but unless he's an harassing ass zombie, this story needs to go away.

Except for the manic episodes perhaps R73?

r75 I actually was just googling this a few days ago, r75, this article was illuminating (also "manic depression" is now called "bipolar disorder" it says).

R70, she says it was a short relationship, and it sounds like she’s accusing him of stalking her (and her kid?) as much as anything, so why are you using the “it’s her fault for staying with him” lecture here? We don’t know whether she filed a restraining order.

r77 we know because she would have said if she had or not, that's a big card to play and it backs up her accusations. It's also a legal trail that biographers could look to for verification vs. a Woman Scorned. And it probably would have been in the news already, even back then, because he was pretty famous in literary circles.

She also said they were friends for a long time, so it's not like they bumped into each other at a party and dated for two months and then never spoke again.

He probably wasn’t throwing tables at her when they were friends.

r79 I dunno, she might inspire that in men she dates. I mean; look at her Twitter feed.

David Foster Wallace. Isn't he like still dead?

#metoo accusations can bring the dead back to life, r81. He's hiding out in a wigwam in New Mexico at the moment.

I never understood what his writing was all about, it all seemed like a bloated nothing to me. I am sure he was a pretentious twat.

What did you read of his, r83?

This isn't the first time she has discussed the abuse in their relationship. The abuse allegations have been public knowledge for years. She has written about it in the past and biographies and articles about him mentioned it.

I think she is frustrated that the abuse allegations were dismissed or ignored because people respected his work so much.

In a biography of Wallace, the author prints letters he wrote admitting the abuse, stalking, etc. but his (the author's) only comment is: "The craftsmanship of that letter is quite remarkable."

If there is anything that people have learned (or should have learned) from the "me too " movement, it's that there are often complex reasons why a woman might not report the abuse right away. Embarrassment, risking losing a job, fear of not being believed, etc..

Karr wrote in one of her tweets that she was abused as a child; and hence, as a adult didn't always recognize when she was being abused. It seemed somewhat normal.

In an ideal world victims would report abuse right away but real life is not always ideal.

[quote] It's a guy who likes to hear himself talk. I enjoyed parts of Infinite Jest (read about 200 pages), but this is a guy who needs to be clever. All of what he writes is self-consciously clever.

You mean, as opposed to James Joyce and William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, who hid/hide their lights under bushels?

That's the kind of league DFW plays in, like it or not.

Not surprising. He always struck me as the woman-hating type.

I've never cared for his writings. I believe he probably did abuse her, but at the same time I can't help but feel like the abuse wasn't exactly his fault, because he was mentally ill, suffered severe side-effects from his medications, he even resorted to electro-shock therapy, and she choose to become involved with him after he had already developed an obsession with her. They both seemed like two screwed up people,.

r87 I agree, but that also means considering that women also might have less than stellar reasons for not reporting. If people want to be treated fairly, they have to accept they are going to be under some scrutiny as human beings, because we're all capable of being shitty people. Even historically oppressed groups shouldn't be automatically believed, or get a free pass for their own behaviour. It goes both ways.

R87 Fair enough. For example, if a woman doesn't report abuse but heads directly to a civil lawsuit that is cause for a reasonable amount of skepticism. The allegations may still be true but bringing money into the equation makes it harder to judge.

In this particular case, she is not asking for money. I really think she feels angry that people chose to ignore or dismiss her claims for years while he was being treated like a literary god.

Oops, r92 was meant for r91.

R92 oh, I'm sure she does, as she's said as much. But how much abuse should he have suffered? Would any amount have made her happy? He was a great writer, her story isn't going to change that.

It's also disengenous of her to suggest that the Hispanic writer is only getting shit on because he's not white and DFW was. That was a ridiculous comment that diminished her claim and she made it in the same Tweet. The circumstances around #metoo didn't fully exist at the time, where an accusation has as much weight as a conviction.

If you look at her other posts and ridiculous comments - I point again to that one above with the name dropping/etc. - she has a specific vision she applies to the world around her that is centered on her being an oppressed minority as a woman. I'm sure if she had any mixed blood she would have mentioned it by now too. So it definitely does cause me to view her claims through that lens. And none of that diminished DFW's skill and writing.

R33, I was in a relationship with a man who I loved very much. He was not what people would refer to as “obviously abusive”.

He was very popular in our mutual circle of friends and business associates, really handsome, charming, and friendly. Everyone loved him, as did I.

During the time that we were together, I was attempting to overcome some personal issues, because I had relapsed after having long term sobriety. He was extremely supportive in that regard, & I felt fortunate to have him in my life.

All of that being said, there were little things that he would do, or say, that to me, revealed cracks of a troubled person. There was just something in there, that I did not trust. I couldn’t place my finger on what it was precisely, however, the overall felling I had, was that this man had the capability to become an abusive partner.

Fast-forward. I entered rehab, and got sober. I made a decision, all on my own, without the input of anyone, that the relationship wasn’t what I wanted. I loved him, but in the final analysis, I didn’t feel that he and I shared similar goals, interests, and value systems. The excessive drinking on my part, during the relationship, masked all of those doubts. But when I got sober, I realized that it just wasn’t for me, and we would both be better off by moving on.

Well, lo & behold. This man has become a stalker. Incidents from following me, accidentally running into me at the supermarket, driving by the house, and his personal favorite: calling me repeatedly, even though I never answer his calls, or call him. Not once.

I haven’t reported him to the police. Why? Because I know inherently that he will never actually harm me. He has very poor coping mechanisms for ending relationships. I still care for him very much, and I understand his behavior, and I also understand that I’m not in danger. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe I am. And please know that if I felt one iota of being in danger from him, I’d call the police.

Stalking is passive/aggressive, abusive behavior. However, it doesn’t mean that the stalker will actually harm you. Yes, it’s annoying, but I believe that he’ll eventually stop.

So I can understand why she didn’t call the police. DFW was obsessed with her, but he wasn’t going to harm her.

Human relationships are sometimes complicated.

How very interesting that the well-written Tale above tracks so closely and specifically to the Author's story.

I can imagine .. her... feeling that, but why make a huge deal out of it now? She'd already said her piece multiple times. And to then tack on the racial connotation to the end which distracts from her actual complaint (and is completely unfounded, as well - it's the modern equivalent of "spirituous evidence"). Her Twitter post was an attention-grabbing ploy, but for what purpose? To let the world know famous writers can be assholes? Why was she so grievously offended by it that she wants to make sure every mention of him has an asterisk? I think it's probably a combination of all of that, plus she wanted the attention and thought she could piggyback on the story. And, frankly, she seems pissed that this other person is getting the attention and not her.

To answer that, you just need to look at her Twitter feed and her previous posts. Look at what she actually seems to think about the world and how she sees it. And given her "because he was white" thing, it makes the rest of her memory recollections suspect. Did everything happen the way she says or did she assume some things happened because of the relationship? Did she project motives onto him? Was she sure he was really stalking her and it wasn't an accidental encounter? She's not clean, and he's not alive, so we can't answer any of these questions. I agree human relationships can be complicated and messy, which is why I don't just automatically assume she's 100% correct.

She seems really angry, in fact. Her responses to some other people in her Twitter thread about it are aggressive towards him in an odd way. It seems unjustified, based on what she's said, without some additional reason(s) she hasn't revealed because it makes her look bad.

Very interesting post, thank you R95.

OK, wow, I had no idea about DFW's tendency towards violence. I'd read posthumous biographical essays right after his death (I believe one was written by his sister or mother) that described his life-long battle with depression and his unending torment, but nothing about the torment he visited upon others. I never read anything else biographical about him until how.

One thing that struck me is how universally praised his wife was to the point of not only being regarded as "good for DFW," but something of a savior. What a heavy mantle to hang on someone dealing with a profoundly mentally ill spouse. And it certainly casts his suicide in a new light as the ultimate "Fuck you." It takes effort to nail a belt into a patio rafter in a prominent spot and go through with a hanging. I'm sure the eloquent, well-crafted suicide note also required a lot of effort.

The few descriptions I've read of his violent episodes in the links on this thread sound like "I'll show you" revenge episodes. And what Karr said a few years ago nails it:

[quote]And believe me; I was still, you know, really devastated as, you know, anybody who had ever cared about him was by his suicide. Anybody who had ever talked him out of killing himself was - you know, felt like a failure, obviously, and was devastated by that death.

And a note about Karr's use of humor descriibing DFW's stalking episodes. If you've read her memoirs [italic]The Liars Club{/italic] and [italic]Cherry[/italic], you'll see that she couches her descriptions of a very dysfunctional, bordering on tragic childhood and adolescence in humor. I imagine writing about bad, long-standing memories without humor would be torturous.

r98 a rational person might see it as a "fuck you", but to a manic depressive it might be another thing altogether. We don't really know his intentions.

She has no problem writing about it in her Twitter feed, about how torturous it was...

I say dig him up and bring charges!

What do think his intentions might have been, R99? He hung himself so prominently and in such a violent fashion where he would be found by his spouse within a matter of hours, if not minutes, after having the presence of mind to write a detailed suicide letter after a history of lashing out violently against significant others because...

r99 I don't know, I'm not a manic depressive and whatever else issues he had. Maybe he wasn't thinking at all. Maybe he just wanted peace.

Why do posters here claim he was manic depressive? No, it is not difficult to diagnose BPD and he had a decades-long history of contact with the psychiatric profession. You'd think they would have caught it before DL intoned with its echo chamber diagnosis.

r103 because it's mentioned he suffered from major depression and mania throughout his life. I'm sure he had other psychosis as well. And please read the fucking link above where it says it's difficult to distinguish from the other DEPRESSION. Unless you're a psychiatrist, in which case I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Wallace killed himself the first time his wife left him alone in the house, in his mind he was probably acting in desperation instead of actively thinking of the worst way to hurt her. From a New Yorker article: "During the spring of 2008, a new combination of antidepressants seemed to stabilize him. When GQ asked him to write an essay on Obama and rhetoric, he felt almost well enough to do it. The magazine reserved a hotel room for him in Denver. But he cancelled. That June, the annual booksellers’ convention was in Los Angeles, and Wallace drove there to have dinner with Pietsch, Nadell, and a few others. Pietsch was amazed at how thin Wallace was. Nadell, at Wallace’s request, explained to magazine editors that he had a stomach malady. “It had to be severe enough to explain why he couldn’t travel,” she remembers.

About ten days after the dinner, Wallace checked in to a motel about ten miles from his home and took an overdose of pills. When he woke up, he called Green, who had been searching for him all night. When she met him at the hospital, he told her that he was glad to be alive. He was sorry that he’d made her look for him. He switched doctors and agreed to try electroconvulsive therapy again. He was terrified at the prospect—in Urbana, it had temporarily taken away his short-term memory—but he underwent twelve sessions. They did not help.

Caring for Wallace was exhausting. For one nine-day period, Green never left their house. In August, her son suffered an athletic injury, and she wanted to be with him. Wallace’s parents came to look after David. “It’s like they’re throwing darts at a dartboard,” he complained to them about his doctors. They went with him to an appointment with his psychiatrist; when the doctor suggested a new drug combination, Wallace rolled his eyes. Eventually, Wallace asked to go back on Nardil. But Nardil can take weeks to stabilize a patient, and Green says that he was too agitated to give it time to work. Still, in early September, Nadell spoke with him and thought that he sounded a bit better.

Green believes that she knows when Wallace decided to try again to kill himself. She says of September 6th, “That Saturday was a really good day. Monday and Tuesday were not so good. He started lying to me that Wednesday.” He waited two days for an opportunity. In the early evening on Friday, September 12th, Green went to prepare for an opening at her gallery, Beautiful Crap, in the center of Claremont, about ten minutes from their home. She felt comforted by the fact that he’d seen the chiropractor on Monday. “You don’t go to the chiropractor if you’re going to commit suicide,” she says.

After she left, Wallace went into the garage and turned on the lights. He wrote her a two-page note. Then he crossed through the house to the patio, where he climbed onto a chair and hanged himself...Green returned home at nine-thirty, and found her husband. In the garage, bathed in light from his many lamps, sat a pile of nearly two hundred pages. "

I’m a fan of DFW’s work. I followed his career, and have read his books. I’m also the woman who posted above about being stalked.

I have no idea why people are getting their panties in a bunch over this, especially his fans or admirers. Read his work, watch his interviews. It is painfully obvious that DFW had mental health issues, and it is also painfully obvious that he was not an ideal, or ideal adjacent partner.

So what? I also posted in this thread that it is my belief and understanding, that he is not unique. A great writer, who was also fucked up emotionally? Quelle surprise!!!

C’mon, everyone. This doesn’t take away from the great talent that this man possessed.

We should welcome any and all insights into his life, from those who knew him.

For those here that haven’t read him: please do. If it takes you a year to get through Infinite Jest, so be it.

At least we’re discussing writers, instead of vapid movie stars and lewd, grotesque, Hollywood producers. DFW wasn’t around long, but he delivered while he was. That’s what I’ll always remember in his regard.

r106 I don't think anyone here thinks he didn't do a lot of the stuff she claims. I just happen to think that her motives and reasons for coming forward again are disingenuous, for reasons I've detailed earlier, and I don't think it's helpful or useful considering he's been dead for 10 years.

It's not helpful in terms of what, R107? As long as we don't focus on the salacious I think her story may be helpful in understanding him as a person. His wife wants to keep their life together private and I understand that as well.

No one is saying her story isn't interesting. It was interesting when she told it years ago. Her motives now, however, are disingenuous and seem more about her getting revenge/attention for herself than alerting the public to a long-dead writer and how someone who everyone knew was difficult and suffered from depression, was not the nicest person to date. She also paints herself as a victim and then makes a ridiculous comparison to race. Looking at her Twitter thread you can see similar motifs in her daily life interactions as well - unrelated to DFW - so it's unsurprising. See the other things I've said in this thread if you want more, I'm tired of repeating myself against the same arguments if there's no new points to make. She's not just "sharing her story", she's inventing a narrative about Diaz's story getting attention only because he's not white, and ignoring the whole #metoo thing that happened in the meantime. She seems like a real piece of work herself.

But she said DFW pushed once pushed her out of a moving car. Another time he followed Karr's FIVE year old son home from school. OK, if you're single and you're down with being stalked and don't want to call the cops because you don't want to deal with the fallout, fine.

If you have dependents and you put up with the this behavior because you are afraid of your professional reputation being tarnished, fuuuuuuck you. Some people wouldn't know a red flag if their Yorkie was smacked with one.

The thing is, R92, whether people chose to ignore or dismiss her claims, he WAS a literary god regardless of how he treated her. One thing didn't invalidate the other.

[quote]he WAS a literary god

I had a friend who gave me something to read of his and I honestly don't understand the praise he gets. The people who praise him are like the Bernie Sanders' crowd - easily impressible and not very perceptive.

Yes - if there's anyone whose reputation is wildly overinflated right now, it's his. I can see why she'd be impatient about him always getting a pass.

Does his being a "literary god" invalidate her? Does being a "literary god" invalidate or excuse his numerous (as it now appears) threats and looming assaultive behavior?

If that's what you're saying, how do you think we should deal with violent and/or deviant geniuses? Pharmabro has also been considered as such. Are their significant others supposed to give them a clear path so they can destroy them, themselves and others with their inimitable "genius" or just soak it up so that a minor part of literary society can enjoy him?

Of course his being a literary god doesn't excuse treating her badly; but him treating her badly also doesn't diminish his immense talent. As a society, why do we have to cast people as gods OR demons when they can be both at the same time. For all we know, Michaelangelo fed kittens to starving dogs. It still wouldn't diminish his talent, it would just mean that you probably wouldn't want to hang out with him. Or have him cat-sit for you.

DFW was also an incredibly ill person. It doesn't excuse his behavior, but it at least does offer some explanation. He probably didn't like how he treated her either.

DFW was not a literary god. He was a unique voice, and a damn good writer. That doesn’t mean that some of his writing didn’t suck, or that getting through some of his stuff wasn’t really difficult because he would suddenly reveal himself to be a pretentious prick.

All of that said, I still enjoyed most of his work. I’m also going to read LIT, and The Liars’ Club. There’s room for everyone here.

I don't understand how anyone can read anything of his and not be aware of being in the presence of true brilliance. It doesn't have to be about "liking" it. I "like" Agatha Christie but she's obviously not brilliant. Being a pretentious prick also wouldn't mean he wasn't also a genius. And not every genius is going to hit a home run literally every time, especially given the volume of work that a writer normally produces.

R117, DFW was more than likely a genius, but I still do not take him to be a literary god. Maybe I feel this way because reading his work made it glaringly obvious what a pain in the ass he was in real life. No way is a person, be it man or woman, who can write like that, an easy, breezy walk in the park. And keep in mind, that I came to that conclusion before he took his own life, and before learning about his real with Mary Karr. As a matter of fact, I had pretty much blanked her out as a blip in his life when I first heard about them.

I’m glad that this story resurfaced. Now I can devote some time to reading her work as well.

I hate to say this, yet again, I don’t. DFW is dead and buried. Unless an unpublished treasure is unearthed, we’re never hearing from him again. Mary Karr is still here. I’m now interested in what she has to say. If she had to resurrect DFW in order to grab my attention, and perhaps the attention of others, good.

Does anyone wonder if he thrived, somehow, on being able to verbally abuse "lesser" people and then clinically detach to write about his marks? His essays really did embody a superior type (who got admonished by the universe when his power suction toilet nearly sucked him out of a cruise ship) We do know that sociopaths/psychopaths derive pleasure from being able to grab hold of and abuse others for their own entertainment and pleasure

As some believe, there isn't sufficient evidence for a BPD or that it was even diagnosable in DFW. Might it be that he was also an undiagnosed sociopath who managed to avoid LE, taking his demons out on women who could never, ever fill his bottomless hole? But he was a nice taxpayer and all... His anti-social behavior cannot be dismissed, despite how brilliant he is.

Are people willing to give Norman Mailer such a break?

R118, I'm curious. Why would being an obvious "pain in the ass" in real life or not "an easy, breezy walk in the park" preclude him from being a literary god? So true brilliance also has to be likeable? And completely sane?

It seems completely clear to all that DFW was seriously ill ("mental in the head," as one of my former students endearingly calls it), and I'm sure that is part of what accounts for his abuse--it may account for it completely, for all we know. But it is also true that Karr's entire writing career is predicated on all the ways she can view herself as a victim (including a victim of many bad choices herself). She is one of the major reasons the memoir, which used to be a legitimate, fascinating, and varied genre, is now a litany of nothing but traumas. So, bad on her for her need to air every trauma she has ever orgasmed over. She writes very well, but to what end, I often wonder.

Would you have that hold up in any literary journal your might wish to have any one of your publications appear in?

[quote] I'm curious. Why would being an obvious "pain in the ass" in real life or not "an easy, breezy walk in the park" preclude him from being a literary god?

Possibly because his interpretations of life, no matter how well rendered, are not true or an "easy breezy" walk through his relationships as he told you it would was going to be. And significant others might not agree with your fanboy defense?

I agree with R118. Life is for the living, and the work of DFW didn't touch me to the point where I wanted to keep it - I read about 200-300 pages from two of his books and resold both. A talent certainly, but trying too hard. There are many other writers that have made a much more profound impact on my life.

r118 what work of his have you read?

r123 you realize you aren't everyone, correct?

That TV interview posted above really shook him up -- he found himself in the wrong side if the media line and, unlike Franzen and the current publishing world, didn't believe writers are performing artists.

After a while I got bored with the interview... It's as if he is marvelling at the thoughts coming out of his head (and his mouth). How does it end? Just the interview, not his life.

r127 oh if there was only a way to find out! By listening to it. Or by flinging yourself off a cliff and asking DFW.

Mary Karr also noted in her latest round of DFW comments that he "preyed on his students." More detail, please, MK.

How does the Charlie Rose circle jerk end, inquiring minds? Well, Charlie asks everybody how what they like to read now differs from what they liked to read ten years ago, and there's a round of chin-stroking and yapping. And then Charlie asks everybody, "Whence the Novel," and there's another round of chin-stroking and yapping. Then the graphics department gets into the act as we see the covers of the latest book by each roll down the screen, and . . .

I love you, R130

R129, DFW was known to fuck his female students. Yes, they threw themselves at him, but he also took the bait.

Sorry, R87. But my sympathy only goes so far.

I understand why women or other abuse victims are afraid to come out with it, but when your silence opens up the opportunity for other people to be victimized, then you are complicit.

I have deep sympathy for battered women, for example, but if their husbands/boyfriends are also abusing/molesting their children and they don't say anything about it, then they belong in jail right along with the abuser.

Same with all the metoo women. You knew what Weinstein and Cosby were up to but kept silent out of a selfish fear about your own reputation or career, and allowed it to continue happening to other women. Fuck you.

Put on your big boy/girl pants and stand up to/report abuse when it happens. Or accept that you are complicit and/or that people are going to question your motives. Especially if a civil lawsuit ($$$$$) is involved.

#metoo

fuck, y'all. I was first.

even if I did it to myself.

#metoo, bitches

r136 you slut!

DFW sleeping with students (including undergrads) was common knowledge where he taught, it was briefly covered in the biography of him. A DLer who had his as a professor mentioned it in the thread after DFW's death, Wallace had some phase where he was really into new mothers. "He had a weird fetish for female students who had just given birth. Three times while I was at ISU, he hooked up with them, and wood beeline for them if he'd heard they just had a baby. That was odd."

Yeah, he had a serious Oedipal "mommy" problem. His mother was a grammarian (seriously), and he kind of had to perform and be perfect to meet her high standards, though she didn't enforce this consciously or maliciously, that is just what she was like. She also had depression issues, and he wrote notes and slipped them under his parents' bedroom door to ask her permission for things like, "May I please paint my bedroom" a different color. He consciously or unconsciously sought out sexy nurturing mommies---let's recall, Mary Karr was a mother, and that was part of the unconscious draw. But she turned out to be a kick-ass character with a strong sense of herself, who was not inclined to give him the total envelopment he wanted. He had fear and hostility toward mouthy, full-of-themselves, difficult smart-asses like Elizabeth Wurtzel. He remarked to one friend a few years before getting married, I believe in the years after the Mary Karr thing, that he wanted a woman who was a nurse or a social worker, which is so cheesy, and so telling, that need to be mommied. When he did finally marry, it was to a woman who was . . . . a mother. Her son was by then a teenager, and lived with the father, so DFW didn't have to compete with him too much for mommy's attention. It's not coincidental that both Kurt Cobain and DFW killed themselves as their wives were busy and wrapped up getting ready to launch a big artistic achievement in their own creative life----Courtney Love had a new record premiering, and Karen Green, the wife of DFW, was about to open an art show at her gallery.

In WASP World, a writer worked as a writer. In anti-social Jewish World, we force them to be schoolteachers.

Working as a writer probably would not have saved DFW's life, but it would have kept his weirdness away from academia and the kids

It'd be nice if you could actually earn a living as a writer just from selling books and things. Some people can, but a very very tiny amount. So you end up with a lot of writers (or worse, poetry authors) in academia and they're passing on their stuff to a new generation.

r139 I'd disagree that Mary Karr is a "kick-ass character with a sense of herself". She is just another person who has adopted a victim mindset and sees everything through Feminist and Gender theories. That whole performance was tiresome two decades ago and it's not getting better with age. The victimhood seems to amplify and multiply. I mean, when she can't appreciate that she runs into three famous men on her street, and instead wonders WHY she didn't run into three famous women of color instead, and then uses that to say it's still a man's world, and she isn't JOKING, I mean, come the fuck on! She has turned into a caricature.

She sounds fucked up, though, with her own drinking and substance abuse issues and psychological traumas, so maybe that's another reason DFW was into her (for a few months, anyway).

OK, so Mary Karr's literary output contains schtick is tiresome. Still. As a person, she made her way in the world for years on her own, and for years later as a single mother, in a way DFW plain and simple did not have the mettle or capacity to do. She is a very tough woman with a bullshit detector one might miss under some of her wackiness. Kind of a Gawd-help-us, sure. But there is steel there that on DFW's very best day, he did not have. He was a scared baby who needed lots of babying. I'm a fan of big chunks of his output, but that was and is, very clear.

R143 no one gives a shit about her. You trying to make her into some amazing person is pure invention. Just look at her Twitter feed to see what type of person she is. She's a professional victim trying to put herself in the news over a failed two month relationship with a much more famous and better author than her. No one cares about how she got knocked up and raised a kid except possibly child protective services.

I've no doubt DFW was an asshole, but the poster shitting him on him for committing suicide can fuck right off. You have no fucking idea what depression is like, so shut the fuck up, you piece of shit.

People are just so butt-hurt that Mary Karr won't keep her big fat mouth shut and help burnish the myth of The Sanctified Golden Child of Genius.

How does tweeting about it a few times on the occasion of a famous Latino writer getting pilloried for something DFW got away with make her a Professional Victim? Because you don’t seem to be saying “she’s only been selling poetry her whole life because of her relationship with DFW.” It seems more like you’re unaware of the fact that she’s had a regular, non-DFW-oriented career all this time.

[quote]In WASP World, a writer worked as a writer. In anti-social Jewish World, we force them to be schoolteachers.

1) he taught one class per semester — it was basically a sponsorship

2) who do you want teaching creative writing?

3) ?????????????????

R147 no clue what you are talking about. Read the whole Twitter thread and the comments and her responses, and how many people she was tweeting to, and the articles resulting from it, and her tweet history in general with the starting point of the examples mentioned in this thread which I don't think you have read. I've heard of her, but I have never cared for her trauma writing or poetry.