As the death toll climbs from yesterday’s horrific Metrolink commuter train accident in LA, news comes of another death in Southern California. David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Girl With Curious Hair, and other works of fiction and nonfiction, was found dead last night at his home in Claremont from apparent suicide by hanging. He was 46. At the time of his death, he was teaching writing at Pamona College. His most recent books are the 2005 essay collection Consider the Lobster and the 2004 story collection Oblivion.

Update: The John McCain Connection
Go here to read the entire post about David Foster Wallace on John McCain. An essay which Wallace wrote about McCain eight years was republished as a book in June. Wallace recently said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that the context in which he wrote the essay is entirely different than the political context we know today, and that, given the absurdities and injustices of the Bush administration, no candidate running on the Republican ticket can claim to be a maverick.

This photo is from his personal website.

Other links:
David Foster Wallace on Charlie Rose

Video of David Foster Wallace talking at his “first trip to a foreign country in which I don’t speak the language”–Italy, 2006

Watch a July, 2008 interview with David Foster Wallace on The Ethical Exhibitionist

David Foster Wallace wiki page

Read an excerpt from an email interview Dave Eggers conducted with Wallace for The Believer in 2003.

My own belief, perhaps starry-eyed, is that since fictionists or literary-type writers are supposed to have some special interest in empathy, in trying to imagine what it’s like to be the other guy, they might have some useful part to play in a political conversation that’s having the problems ours is.