Suicide Is Not an Act of Cowardice
A radio host’s tweets have resurrected a dangerous myth to disparage a celebrated novelist.
David Foster Wallace, who took his own life in 2008, was a courageous man. He was a university professor, a prolific writer of essays and novels, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, but none of those things made him notably brave. What made him brave was that he accomplished what he did while fighting a major depressive disorder, and survived it until he was 46. He achieved even as he struggled to balance the disruptive side effects of his medications with their life-preserving qualities. Many who face depression know that private struggle.
But John Ziegler, a pundit, radio talk show host, and writer for and , thinks that Wallace was a coward whose suicide demonstrates that his work is not credible. Twitter is the perfect:
