Tribute to David Foster Wallace

There was a last-minute event thrown together as a tribute to David Foster Wallace (DFW), who committed suicide in early September. Many local writers were greatly affected by the sudden loss of a man who was such an inspiration to many of us. His risk-taking, his outlandish scenarios and his trademark footnotes, featured in his fiction and non-fiction alike, gave many a writer the gumption to push for more. My first experience with DFW was an article in Harper's Magazine in 1996 called Shipping Out (renamed A supposedly funny thing I'll never do again in the subsequent essay collection), and I thought it was one of the smartest, funniest things I'd ever read in my life.

You could tell the evening was a slap-dash affair, too, as their seemed to be a lot of muddled confusion as the organizers tried to get the evening started, fumbling with tables and microphones, but non of that mattered. Everybody there was on the same page: to pay homage to a brilliant man. The only thing I was worried about was starting an unintended rumour. DFW was a part of a group of writers that I think of in the same breath as Jonathan Franzen and Jonathan Safran Foer. I kept telling people I was going to the Jonathan Franzen memorial, and then I'd have to correct myself, so I hope nobody thinks that we've lost Franzen as well. Anyway, Zsuzsi Gartner welcomed the crowd and talked about when she first heard of DFW, which was when a friend sent her a short story in 1993, called Little Expressionless Animals, that included Alex Trebek as a main character. Gartner has been a Jeopardy! fan from waaay back, and she was a DFW fan since she read that story.

The evening featured readings of DFW's fiction, non-fiction and essays by nine writers, including Lee Henderson, Meg Worlitzer, Michael Turner, Mike Christie, Aaron Peck, Gartner, Bruce Grierson, John Burns, and Deborah Campbell - writers at various stages in their careers in fiction and non-fiction, putting a fine point on his ability to inspire. Hearing DFW's different genres read together emphasized how accomplished he was in each one of them. His essays showed off his finely tuned observations and sharp wit and his fiction showed his incredible imagination and muscled prose. It's no wonder he inspired so many.