autopsy

Three New Details in David Foster Wallace's Autopsy Report

Alex Carnevale · 10/28/08 02:10PM

This month's Rolling Stone cover story details the circumstances of David Foster Wallace's death. That article was written before Wallace's autopsy report was publicly released, and new details have emerged that can't help but color our understanding of his last days. Click to find out what's new.The most striking new detail in the autopsy report is that Wallace bound his wrists together with duct tape to prevent an aborted attempt. Yes, this note is on the macabre side, but the Rolling Stone portrait makes Wallace's act all the more considered choice, one echoed by Wallace years earlier when he said after a friend's suicide attempt, "I just, just - I knew that if anybody was fated to screw up a suicide attempt, it was me." To prevent that, he went all the way.