Late afternoon naps in mid spring on a Sunday. Dawn, Charlotte and me each doing the same thing in different parts of the house. You go from the dim months of winter to this over-the-top sun and it’s almost too much.

Last night Dawn and I watched the A24 film The End of the Tour, about a five-day interview with David Foster Wallace for Rolling Stone. I admire the studio for doing it but can’t imagine the film was much of a success. It’s set in 1996, following Wallace’s sudden fame with Infinite Jest. One of the more prescient scenes is him talking about a future where our entertainment would get so enticing it would be the death of us. That and a scene towards the end where he’s explaining to the reporter what really happened with the heroin rumors, when he flunked out of Harvard. It wasn’t anything as sexy as a heroin addiction (the story everyone wanted to hear), it was more depression. And how hard that idea was for most to understand.

I’ve been reading his posthumous book The Pale King these past few weeks and using it as inspiration to write my own scraps in a free writing style most mornings. Like Infinite Jest there are a lot of characters and unfortunately, there isn’t an overarching storyline I can discern now almost 500 pages in. But like IJ it’s quite entertaining. He had a way of being accessible despite being so genius-level in his writing. But it makes me sad he couldn’t finish the book, couldn’t find a way to string it together. I wonder if the psychic anguish he was under prevented him from doing that or if the book itself was the source of his anguish.

Before I left for my outing to the coast I got a box in the mail from the agency I work for, a cellophane-wrapped package with a black ribbon full of chips, cookies, power bars and beef jerky, with a note saying happy mental health awareness month. I was really touched by that. And perfect timing I thought, I’ll snack on this in the car driving to the coast.

I’m most grateful to David Wallace for having the courage to write about his own suffering and struggle with depression, because that brings more awareness to the issue and reminds us we’re not alone. I think he may have been at his best in moments of clarity where he had such fun in his prose. I look forward now to reading the last few stories in his catalog and forcing a piece or two on Dawn, possibly one of my kids when they’re old enough.

I remember with Lily a time when she was in the throes of it, when her depression had almost got the best of her, trying to convince her that she could overcome it and the way she reacted, how she refused to believe that, it was like she was a different person, possessed. Like the shadow version of her had taken control.

I think we all have that shadow in us. For some like David Wallace it can be their undoing.

Categories: Diary, Errata

Tags: David Foster Wallace, journal writing, mental health