Teenage suicide = comic gold!

Just noticed something incredibly strange in this week's New Yorker (April 3, 2006 issue). The Shouts & Murmurs humor piece, by Paul Rudnick, seems to have been quite obviously inspired by "Prairie Fire," an earlier New Yorker feature by Eric Konigsberg on the March 2005 suicide of Brandenn Bremmer, a 14-year old prodigy from Nebraska. It's all there: the deluded parents, the self-serving "expert," the New Agey lingo (indigo child = dandelion child), the obnoxious condescension towards other kids.

Now, if you read my earlier post on "Prairie Fire," you'll know I think Brandenn's parents and especially his psychologist deserve some criticism for the way they isolated him from other kids and used him as the medium for their own ego gratification. But a humor piece? In the same publication, two months later? Pretty strange. I'd be interested to know if I'm right about that story being Paul Rudnick's inspiration. Heck, maybe I'll ask him.