Marilyn Monroe, the Kim Kardashian of the Cold War, would never have become a favorite source of quotes for roasties the world over had she not ODed on barbiturates. Kurt Cobain is the classic example of this, parlaying his overrated musical talent (he admitted to stealing the riff for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from Boston’s “More Than a Feeling”) into permanent legend status with a well-placed shotgun shell. Many a mediocrity has been spared a decline into senility, sentimentality, and irrelevance by getting themselves waxed at a young age, immortalizing their genius in the mulched minds of the public. The sordid reality is that death is a good career move, particularly for halfwits like Wallace who receive praise and adulation far beyond what they deserve.

“DFW’s Suicide is the 9/11 of American Literature” is a headline I’m sure someone used at the time, without the slightest scintilla of self-awareness. He also conveniently chose to kill himself the day after the anniversary of September 11th, a connection his credulous fans would be sure to notice. More importantly, though, Wallace thoughtfully provided a copy of the manuscript of The Pale King, the novel he’d been working on at the time. While his suicide note has never been made public, given that his favorite book was The Drama of the Gifted Child, it was probably more humorless pontificating combined with footnotes that nobody wants to read. No one knows for certain why Wallace chose to sway from the rafters of his garage while his dogs drooled and stared like his other idiot fans. How tragic it was that Wallace took his life at the sprightly age of 46, never again to regale us with incisive essays about eating lobster or massive tomes full of Gordian knot sentences and cotton candy-colored footnotes. The literary world went apoplectic with grief, saddened by the suicide of this boy genius. On this day ten years ago, David Foster Wallace went into his garage, tied a noose, slung it around his neck, and kicked the chair away.

Foster Fox by William D. Writer