Writers' Suicides

[Jozanny]

I know another member once created a suicide thread, one that more or less involved an interesting conceptual discussion, but I am interested in more factual data, and this is what I have so far, minus a few dates I do not feel like surfing willy nilly to insert (okay, okay, I fixed it...):

David Foster Wallace, hanging (2008)
Hunter S. Thompson, gunshot, (2005)
Spalding Gray, drowning? (2004)
James Leo Herlihy, pill overdose (1993)
Randall Jarrell, death by auto, speculative, (1965)
Sylvia Plath, oven gas (1963)
Ernest Hemingway, gunshot (1961)
Virginia Woolf, drowning (1941)

Anyone else I should note?

It is still somewhat popular in today's media to say poets & writers are more unstable and therefore their profession is dangerous; eh. Mental health treatments, barring lobotomy, do not have an entirely favorable success rate, even if we want to ascribe ever aspect of human behavior to medical model rationality.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Anyone else I should note?

Yukio Mishima, seppuku [ritual stomach cutting] (1970)
Dylan Thomas, alcohol poisoning (1953)
Walter Benjamin, morphine poisoning (1940)
Edgar Allan Poe, alcohol poisoning (1849)

[sixsmith]

Arthur Koestler, overdosed with his wife (1983)
Hart Crane, jumped into the Gulf of Mexico (1932)
Primo Levi, jumped from the landing of his 3rd story apartment, *speculative (1987)
Petronius, self-inflicted blood loss (66AD)
Romain Gary, gunshot (1980)
Richard Brautigan, gunshot (1984)
Cesare Pavese, overdose (1950)



*Probable in my opinion.

[Brad Coelho]

Add Anne Sexton & John Kennedy O'Toole to the bulging list.

[Vautrin]

Dan Brown: A lethal combination of Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol (2009)

The toxicology report concluded it was enough cheese to kill the careers of eight writers. He partied hard.

[Madame X]

Since it is speculated that, had he approached his trial with a bit more gravity, dear old Socrates could have gotten away with skipping into merry exile, I think his death by the infamous hemlock cocktail should count as well. 399 BC

Whether he's, technically, a real 'writer' shall be a matter of personal discretion.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Jack London, morphine poisoning upon chronic alcoholism (1916)

[lallison]

hmmm...looks like we're at issue now as to what actually constitutes suicide.

[Babbalanja]

I agree with lallison, a lot of these aren't suicide in the strictest sense. Poe? Come on.

Primo Levi, jumped from the landing of his 3rd story apartment, *speculative (1987)

*Probable in my opinion.

Probable why?

I recall reading that people who knew Levi doubted it was a suicide. For a celebrated author, not leaving a suicide note is pretty suspicious. And since Levi was chemistry-savvy, he probably could have come up with a more reliable way to check out than falling down stairs.

Regards,

Istvan

[dfloyd]

than those of other professions, as alluded to by the poster. For example, Hemingway committed suicide after receiving several electric shock treatments of which he wasn't apprised of beforehand. While he was a noted drinker of alcohol, from which his health issues may have stemmed, he didn't kill him self because he was high strung. Today, he would never be treated in such a manner.

Virginia Woolf was schizophrenic and had started to hear voices in her head just prior to her drowning. Agiain, modern treatment could have possibly saved her life.

These are only two off the lists provided, but I suspect there are more than a few who suffered health problems which today could be more successfully treated.

[PeterL]

Yukio Mishima, seppuku [ritual stomach cutting] (1970)
Dylan Thomas, alcohol poisoning (1953)
Walter Benjamin, morphine poisoning (1940)
Edgar Allan Poe, alcohol poisoning (1849)

Poe certainly did not commit suicide, and the best explanation for his death is that it was from rabies.

[PeterL]

I do not know about all of the deaths mentioned, bu in at least two cases, Hemingwway and Thompson, the writers used suicide as a way to shorten the time before an inevitable death from cancer. I believe that those two made rational decisions.

[OrphanPip]

Maupassant tried to commit suicide by cutting his own throat, but he failed and was institutionalized as a result, and died four months later. Like Woolf, he may have been schizophrenic as well, or suffering from syphilis related mental health issues.

[dfloyd]

I know he had had multiple electric shock treatments to the brain shortly before his death. Can you give me your source for claiming he had cancer? In 1962, I read as many of his obituaries as I could, but never read where he had cancer or was being treated for it.

[kelby_lake]

I agree with lallison, a lot of these aren't suicide in the strictest sense. Poe? Come on.


Probable why?

I recall reading that people who knew Levi doubted it was a suicide. For a celebrated author, not leaving a suicide note is pretty suspicious. And since Levi was chemistry-savvy, he probably could have come up with a more reliable way to check out than falling down stairs.

Regards,

Istvan

I thought he just fell down them.