Biography of David Foster Wallace traces his path to greatness and an early death
During one stay at the psychiatric unit of a hospital, “the doctors likely considered the possibility that he suffered from bipolar disorder, manic depression.” But they ended up putting him on Nardil, which treats atypical depression. He would stay on this drug until a year before he died.
.. Partly through his own experience of addiction, Wallace had come to see America as “a nation of addicts, unable to see that what looked like love freely given was really need neurotically and chronically unsatisfied.” However, rather than simply describe that addiction, Wallace said in an interview that the writer’s job was to give “CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness.” Wallace noted that “American writers were still content to describe an ironic culture when they should be showing the way out.”
.. At the same time, he was happy with Green and decided to go off Nardil in 2007. Doctors tried different combinations of antidepressants and even electroconvulsive therapy, but on Sept. 12, 2008, Wallace hung himself at home