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In
Memoriam: David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008
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 The world knew David Foster Wallace as the postmodern literary icon whose
Infinite Jest recently landed on Time’s list of the 100 best English-language novels published since the magazine’s inception. Here on campus, though, the creative writing professor was a low-key presence except where it mattered: in the classroom or during his well-attended office hours.
Wallace’s suicide death on September 12 was followed by an international outpouring of tributes to his work and, at Pomona, intensely personal remembrances of a writing professor who balanced humble compassion with an insistence that students do their best work. “He was an amazing teacher—tough but inspiring, infinitely knowledgeable and infinitely patient,” writes Peter Cook ‘03. “But the core of David Wallace’s import to me was in his valiant battle against solipsism. Writing, he told us, is communication, and it is no more about the writer than the reader.”
Wallace joined Pomona’s faculty as the first Roy E. Disney Professor of Creative Writing in the fall of 2002 upon completion of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” He had grown up in academia—his parents were professors—and Wallace went on to attend Amherst, graduating summa cum laude with degrees in English and philosophy. He entered the literary spotlight with 1987’s
The Broom of the System, a novel he wrote while still in the M.F.A. program at the University of Arizona.
Along with his famous, 1,079-page Infinite Jest (1996), Wallace’s body of work includes several collections of short stories:
Girl With Curious Hair (1989), Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999), and
Oblivion (2004). His non-fiction work included A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (1997),
Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity (2003),
Consider the Lobster (2005) and articles for such varied publications as
The Atlantic, Rolling Stone and Gourmet. The New Yorker, Harper’s and
Esquire published his short fiction.
As Robert Potts wrote for the U.K. paper The Guardian: “He was still young, and still brilliant … He set the bar so dizzyingly high with each new piece of writing that I cannot imagine where he might next have taken his art; and it hurts that I will never know.”
Wallace is survived by his wife, Karen Green, his parents and a sister.
This article also appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of
Pomona College Magazine.
Read more:
• President David Oxtoby’s letter to the community
• Personal tributes submitted by Wallace’s former students and others
• Media stories about David Foster Wallace
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