A Brooklyn writer whose suicide-themed first novel was turned into a Hollywood flick killed himself by jumping from a window at his parents’ home near Grand Army Plaza Thursday, authorities said.
Edison “Ned” Vizzini, 32, found fame in 2006 after publishing his first book, “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” a semi-autobiographical tale about a brainy high-school kid who survives a jump from the Brooklyn Bridge and winds up in a mental hospital.
The book was made into a 2010 movie of the same name starring Zach Galifianakis, Emma Roberts and Keir Gilchrist as the narrator.
In the debut novel, Vizzini tackled his private demons head-on. “So why am I depressed?” the main character asked. “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 Stuyvesant HS and Hunter College grad wrote with candor and gentle humor about his lifelong struggle with depression, but had recently “taken a turn for the worse,” according to his younger brother, Daniel, 29.
“At his signings, countless kids would approach him to say that he changed their lives — he gave them hope,” his publisher, Alessandra Balzer of Balzer + Bray, said in a statement Friday.
Vizzini is survived by his wife, Sabra Embury, a book critic who early Friday posted a heartbreaking photo on Facebook of her, her husband and their young son in a happy moment.
On his Web site, the precocious genius — who wrote a New York Press column at age 15 — recommended Andrew Solomon’s “The Noonday Demon” and the Dalai Lama’s “The Art of Happiness” to readers dealing with depression.
Vizzini eventually moved from New York to LA, where he published three more novels: the sci-fi novel “Be More Chill,” an essay collection called “Teen Angst? Naaah . . .” and “The Other Normals,” an alternative fantasy for teens released last year.
Vizzini died Thursday morning after the fourth-floor leap at 39 Plaza Street West in Prospect Heights, the city Medical Examiner’s ¬Office confirmed.
Vizzini was alone in the home at the time and didn’t leave a note.
The versatile wunderkind also wrote for TV, including NBC’s “Believe,” a science fiction and adventure series slated to debut next year, as well as “The Last Resort” and “Teen Wolf.”
Vizzini was also working on a series of books for young people with film director Chris Columbus, the first of which, “House of Secrets,” was published this year.
Many of his fellow writers took to Twitter to sing his praises and mourn his loss.
“Ned Vizzini was a favorite of mine in every way, I think of him in the backseat of my car, chatting with my 6 y.o. about nerd stuff,” wrote author Megan McCafferty, author of the best-selling Jessica Darling series for young adults.
Author John Green added on Twitter, “Ned Vizzini’s memoir of high school (Teen Angst? Naaah) was one of the first YA books I read when I started working at Booklist.’’
A spokeswoman for the The ME’s office said he died from “blunt impact injuries … consistent with jumping.”
Additional reporting by Larry Celona and AP