Did Pomona College Kill David Foster Wallace?
Oct 3rd, 2008 by LA Brain Terrain
I’ve been waiting for some one to pose this question every since news of Wallace’s suicide hit the web last month.
The September 25, 2008 post “WHO KILLED DAVID FOSTER WALLACE?” on Inside Higher Ed blog, University Diaries tackles this question head on.
It’s not that university life drives the susceptible to suicide, perhaps it’s just that the susceptible are drawn to the academy.
Now someone needs to ponder the question if living in Southern California drove David over the edge: all this damned sunshine, heat and traffic.
A Pomona faculty member, Howard Jackson, did a murder suicide with a shotgun four years ago. The ghost of him walking his pugs has been seen on Marston Quad. Maybe Dave Wallace’s ghost will be joining him for Halloween.
I knew Wallace only slightly, but everyone I’ve spoke to who knew him well says he was really, profoundly depressed and that he had been close to suicide several times in the past.
they could have threatened to fire him unless he quit chewing tobacco in class, or something like that. Although I doubt that would have been a sufficient “insult” in his case to trigger severe depression. Like, I would have told them to “kiss my ass” and probably so would he. But I have seen academic settings trigger depressions over trivial points like that in some people.