David Foster Wallace

The novelist and essayist was found dead in his home Sept. 12, reportedly a suicide. Fresh Air remembers him with an interview first aired in 1997, the year he won the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" grant.

Wallace's 1,079 page novel "Infinite Jest" was critically acclaimed. His essays and stories have appeared in Harpers, The New Yorker, Playboy, The Paris Review, and others. He has a new collection of essays, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," (Little, Brown & Co.) The book's title comes from his comic account of being pampered to death on a luxury cruise, which originally appeared in Harpers.

(1.) Actor and writer JASON SEGEL. He’s nominated for an Emmy for his starring role in the comedy drama series Shrinking, as a psychotherapist who’s been having his own mental health crisis because his wife died a year earlier. The first 3 seasons are streaming on Apple TV. Segel got his first memorable role in the popular series, Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000). After the show was canceled, Segel wrote and starred in the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall. He wrote and was the human star of the movie musical The Muppets.

David Foster Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King, was recently published. But to truly enjoy his work, says critic John Powers, you must read his earlier pieces, which were filled with "a staggering eye for detail" from "a mind that was never predictable."