’It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ author Ned Vizzini dies at 32

Best-selling young adult fiction writer Ned Vizzini, whose 2006 semi-autobiographical novel “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” won plaudits for its portrayal of teenage depression and was adapted as a Hollywood film, has died at age 32.
New York City medical examiner spokeswoman Julie Bolcer on Friday said that Vizzini had committed suicide and that his injuries were consistent with a fall from some height.
Vizzini authored four young adult novels about late bloomers and unpopular teens, including “Be More Chill” and “The Other Normals” as well as a collection of essays titled “Teen Angst? Naaah...A Quasi-Autobiography.”
“I was totally blown away by his writing,” Vizzini’s editor Alessandra Balzer of HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray said in a statement posted on Facebook. “It just dazzled with wit and intelligence and warmth — his was the most authentic and daring teen boy voice I’d ever read.” Balzer added: “Ned loved to write about nerdy outsiders who were finding their way to manhood, and he did it better than anyone.”
“It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” about a teenage boy who suffers from depression and thoughts of suicide, was adapted into a 2010 film starring Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis and Emma Roberts.
Earlier this year, Vizzini co-authored a children’s fantasy novel titled “House of Secrets” with “Home Alone” film director Chris Columbus that was intended to be the first in a series.
Vizzini, who grew up in New York City, also served as a writer of the short-lived ABC military drama “Last Resort” and MTV’s supernatural drama “Teen Wolf.”
He was currently working as a writer for NBC’s upcoming science fiction series “Believe,” which was created by “Gravity” director Alfonso Cuaron and produced by “Star Trek” director J.J. Abrams.
“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. Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins.
“It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” praised by The New York Times as “insightful and utterly authentic,” was written in just a few weeks and published in 2006. Set in New York City, and 85 percent true, according to Vizzini, it told of an ambitious, but overworked high school student who considers jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge and ends up in a psychiatric ward.
“So why am I depressed?” asks narrator Craig Gilner. “That’s the million-dollar question, baby, the Tootsie Roll question; not even the owl knows the answer to that one. I don’t know either. All I know is the chronology.”
The movie version was released in 2010 and starred Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis, Emma Roberts and Viola Davis.