Friends and Colleagues Celebrate Foster Wallace
By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 10/24/2008 7:34:00 AM
David Foster Wallace's family, friends and colleagues gathered to remember and celebrate the writer at a memorial service in New York City yesterday afternoon. Although each person who spoke shared a different memory of the writer, who died September 12, a common strand ran throughout each tribute: David Foster Wallace was one very smart writer.Mark Costello, who met Wallace 28 years ago on the campus of Amherst College, said Wallace's was a "mind in splendid overdrive." The two lived together in college and after graduation, and Costello told a funny story of Wallace's dramatic nightly tooth brushing routine. Despite the humor, however, Costello addressed some "very dark times" for Wallace. Wallace's sister, Amy Wallace Havens, also spoke of Wallace's smarts, commenting that having him as a brother meant never "having the last word--ever." Bonnie Nadell, Wallace's longtime agent, too commented on Wallace's intelligence, as did his editor Gerry Howard, who called Wallace's works "ultra-brainy." Wallace's editor at Harper's, Colin Harrison, said that when he would assign Wallace to write a story, he wouldn't give much editorial direction; rather, he'd "let Dave and his imagination and his neurosis run wild."
Other speakers included editor Michael Pietsch, as well as Don DeLillo, Donald Antrim, Zadie Smith, George Saunders, Jonathan Franzen and Deborah Treisman. Wallace's family asks those wishing to make a gift in memory of David Foster Wallace to send contributions for the education of his nieces, Lydia and Sally Havens, to The Lydia and Sally Havens College Trust Fund, c/o Pomona College English Department, 140 West 6th Street, Claremont, Calif., 91711-6335.
Related Content
Related Content
PW PARTNERS
