Post by Graveyardbride on Dec 21, 2013 11:44:15 GMT -5
Author from Brooklyn who fought mental illness, commits suicide
A former Brooklyn man who scored a big hit with a young adult novel about depression has committed suicide.
Ned Vizzini, 32, jumped off the roof of his parents’ Brooklyn home Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
Vizzini, of Los Angeles, had struggled with mental illness all his life, his brother Daniel Vizzini said.
The writer penned It’s Kind of a Funny Story, based on his time in a Brooklyn psychiatric ward as a teen. It was later made into a film starring Zach Galifianakis and Keir Gilchrist.
Vizzini traveled the country talking about mental health issues.
“At his signings, countless kids would approach him to say that he changed their lives – he gave them hope,” his longtime publisher, Alessandra Balzer, of Balzer+Bray, said in a statement Friday.
Vizzini’s other books include Be More Chill and The Other Normals, both of which told of young people who feel like outsiders.
He is survived by his wife and one son.
Source: Ginger Adams Otis, The New York Daily News, December 20, 2013.