In memoriam, DFW

The loss of David Foster Wallace on 12th September came shortly before Prospect was due to go to press, but we were fortunate enough to be able to call upon author Julian Gough to do some justice to one of the most dazzling, troubled talents of recent American letters.

In his Opinion piece, Gough looks back on Foster Wallace's career and its painful self-cancellations: the universities that enabled him to write, but that stifled the writing he was able to do; the gifts of high comedy and high seriousness that set him apart from his peers, but that only rarely found the great subjects his talent deserved; his painful, painfully thorough self-awareness, which pre-empted both his own tragedy and his audience's re-readings of his life. Let us know your thoughts below.