By Joshua Chaplinsky
Why go gently into that good night like a sucker when you can go out in a Bon Jovian blaze of glory and be remembered forever? If you’re a 16th century poet or an obscure opera critic, it might be your only chance at leaving a lasting legacy. And if you’re already a canonical author, it doesn’t hurt your street cred if you die in a fiery car wreck and people blame the KGB.
The authors on this list share a common bond; death was their final indignity. Many of these accounts already exist online, but I humbly submit that none are as colorful as my own. I made a conscious choice not to include any of the famous suicides- Virginia Woolf putting rocks in her pockets, Sylvia Plath putting her head in the oven, Hemingway putting buckshot in his brain- so no need to point out their absence. I was more interested in the accidental, the grotesque, the downright kooky. And I think these 15 deaths more than fit those criteria.
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