Helen DeWitt found safe

Thankfully, the missing novelist has turned up in Niagara Falls, where she's been known to haunt previously:

Missing novelist Helen DeWitt turned up Wednesday in Niagara Falls, N.Y., after vanishing from her Staten Island home, police said.

Dewitt, who had been described as suicidal, was found in good condition, New York police said. She was to be taken to a hospital for evaluation.

Niagara Falls Police Department officers had been asked by New York City police to watch out for DeWitt, who wrote the critically acclaimed "The Last Samurai," Niagara Lt. Joe Morrison said.

"She had a history here," said Morrison, who had no details about how she was found.

Wonderful news, and here's hoping she can get the rest and help she needs.

Comments

[Helen DeWitt]

Kafkaesque experience. Cop says: If you don't come voluntarily I have to take you in. It's better if you come voluntarily. Guy at NF psychiatric ward says: you can be admitted voluntarily or involuntarily. If you don't apply for voluntary admission I'll have to admit you involuntarily. I don't have all night. I'll come back in 5 minutes. If this form isn't signed I'll admit you involuntarily. "Voluntarily" means you are interrogated throughout the night. One person after another asks you the same set of questions - your basic book tour scenario, basically. If you can do a book tour, you can talk your way out of a psychiatric ward. Now I'm in Berlin.

[John Koval]

Berlin. A chance to work on your German.

Three years ago I read your book. When I read the lat page, I turned to the first and started again. When I finished the scond time, I read it out loud to my wife while she knit.

Today I have it at my bedside and page through it now and then, saying "I must consult Ms DeWitt."

Thank you for striking a style that amazes.

[Martín Alejandro]

While watching "Mifune" for the umpteenth time I thought of De Witt and her opera prima(which I've only read twice), the remarkable Last Samurai(by contrast to the emetic Last Samurai, Tom Cruise's evaporated instant bushido) So, as the credits rolled I began looking for recent news about HD, her works in progress, etc and stumbled across your page. Thank you for the Newsday filler. And thanks for posting the comment from one Helen DeWitt. I'd go to Niagara Falls just for the Houdini museum.(Come to think of it H. was a samurai in Dewitt's sense)Either way I've done the mayeutic dance meself with more than one of "order's agents".(a literal translation from the Castillian) Our steroid-addled sociopaths who are nightly glorified on cop tv wouldn't have passed muster in pre WWI Prague's Dept. of Public Safety. I actualy escaped from St. Elisabeths, from villains intent on coercing me into commiting acts of free volition,ersatz voluntary behavior! If only I had been able to reach a Berlin... or even a Flensberg. Well, I hope HD is still in Berlin. If you hear from her, Mr. Koval, please forward my e-address. Please tell her that I offer her sin condiciones a sweet place of refuge in the sub-tropics where she can behave as she likes in inviolable privacy, safe from order's agents and kindred schmucks.