Evan Wright, the award-winning journalist who wrote about US subcultures in the book Generation Kill, which he helped adapt into the HBO miniseries of the same name, has died aged 59.
Wright died by suicide on Friday at a home in Los Angeles, a report by the Los Angeles County medical examiner said.
He appeared in the Max documentary Teen Torture, Inc, in which he spoke about his time in the Seed, a controversial “scared straight” program for children in Florida.
In interviews over the years, Wright spoke about being sent there after his mother’s best friend and her husband were murdered by their son in 1972, leading to his mother’s breakdown. He began to act out and was expelled from school aged 13 and held on drug charges after he pretended to sell marijuana, which was actually catnip. He was then sent to the Seed.
The Seed, which received federal funding until 1974, was subject to a Senate report that same year which revealed the institution used sleep deprivation, threats of physical violence, public humiliation and constant surveillance as a means controlling the children – tactics that were compared to those used by North Korea during the Korean war. The Seed shut down in 2001.
Wright spoke about living with post-traumatic stress disorder after his experience there, after the socialite Paris Hilton testified before a House committee about her experience in four similar youth facilities.
“Whenever I see victims of these programs speak out, I always think, ‘That’s my brother or sister,’” he wrote on X the day before he died. “I feel a bond with anyone who went through this. Then I saw Paris Hilton’s testimony and I realised, ‘Oh, shit she’s my sister, too?’ But yes, it’s a big, messed up family of us.”
Wright eventually returned to school. In the 1990s he moved from Ohio to Los Angeles to become a screenwriter but began working as the entertainment editor and “chief pornographic film reviewer” for Hustler magazine. He soon began writing for Rolling Stone, Time magazine and Vanity Fair.
“I failed at everything else,” Wright once said of journalism. “I was optimistic. It was a refuge for rogues and miscreants. So far, it has exceeded my expectations.”
In 2003 he was sent to Iraq by Rolling Stone and embedded with the Marines’ 1st Reconnaissance Battalion Bravo Company. His journalism resulted in the book Generation Kill, which he adapted into an HBO miniseries with David Simon, the creator of The Wire. In the show Wright was played by the actor Lee Tergesen.
“We’ve lost a fine journalist and storyteller,” Simon wrote on social media on Sunday. “Evan’s contributions to the scripting and filming of Generation Kill were elemental. He was charming, funny and not a little bit feral, as many reporters are. So many moments writing in Baltimore and on set in Africa to remember.”
After Generation Kill, Wright continued to write about topics ranging from environmentalists to neo-Nazis; his other books included American Desperado, about the mafia cocaine smuggler Jon Roberts, and How to Get Away with Murder in America, about a CIA agent who became the focus of an FBI investigation. He also worked as a producer on TV shows including The Bridge, The Man in the High Castle, Homeland and Dirty John.
Wright is survived by his wife, Kelli, and their three children.
• In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
