God is Dead

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Thomas M. Disch died by his own hand in his New York City apartment on July 4.

Artistically, things were going well for him.  He has several books scheduled to be published in the coming year, and Tachyon Publications had just published The Word of God, a strange metafictional screed in which Disch assumed for himself the titular role of a humane and explicitly atheistic supreme deity.

Everything else was a mess.  Disch was in poor health.  He'd been depressed in recent years, particularly after the death of his long-time partner Charles Naylor.  He was broke.  And there were efforts afoot to evict him from his rent-controlled apartment.

So he took what seemed to him appropriate action.

I find myself thinking about his early story "Descending."  In it, a penniless and unemployed young man, lost in thought as he reflexively takes a department store escalator downward for floor after floor, suddenly realizes that the landings no longer have exits and there is no up escalator.  He tries running upward, against the current as it were, but only succeeds in exhausting himself.  Finally he surrenders to the inevitable and continues downward, toward a bottom he will never reach.

Disch, it seems to me, found himself on the down escalator and decided to do something about it.  This is a terrible end for such a brilliant man and such a fine writer.  He had a reputation for being a curmudgeon, but he could be good company when he wished.  I regret his passing -- and in such a manner! -- very greatly.

There is lamentably little we can do for the dead.  But for a writer there is one last service possible.  Go back and re-read some of Tom's work.  (Camp Concentration and 334 are, in very different ways, possibly his best novels, but much as I admire them, I believe his short stories are his very best.  Getting Into Death and Other Stories is just flat-out brilliant.)  Then, if you can, recommend what you've read to somebody who will appreciate it.

End of sermon.

And As Always . . .

The Poem du Jour and Pastor Marcia's Journal have been updated.

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This Literati Life

This Tuesday, one day after driving up to NYC for the joint Tachyon Publications and Temporary Culture reception at James Cummins, Bookseller, I was back in the Big Apple for A Tribute to Avram Davidson, part of the NYRSF Readings Series at the South Street Seaport Museum. Was it worth the ensuant day's exhaustion? Well, up above is Tom Disch in full raconteur mode at the pub afterwards, with Jim Freund (who runs the series as well as hosting the Hour of Wolf show at WBAI) suitably entranced.

So, yeah, I'd say so.

The evening began with readings from Avram's brilliant short fiction by Wendy Walker, Tom La Farge, and myself. Then there was a panel about Davidson himself, with Disch talking about how he inherited Davidson's rental place in Mexico and one hideous afternoon in Avram Davidson's final decline, pushing the great man about the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a wheelchair with Davidson sternly disapproving of everything he saw. "It's rather like being able to say, Yes I knew King Lear -- in his later years."

But, oh, the happy sound of Tom Disch snorting with laughter at the price of each book, when Wendy Walker read from "And Don't Forget the One Red Rose"! A fine and lovely evening.

Below (rather scattered about, because I still haven't got the hang of the photo posting function): Tom La Farge, Ariel Hameon taking a snap from the audience, Wendy Walker, and primary instigator and founder of the Avram Davidson Society, Henry Wessells.

This Literati Life

So where was I yesterday (I hear you refrain from asking)? Well, check out the admittedly amateur snapshot above. To the right is Jacob Weisman, publisher of Tachyon Publications which recently, not coincidentally, published my brilliant new collection The Dog Said Bow-Wow." To the left is Thomas M. Disch. The occasion was a reception for my two newest books, the aforementioned collection and What Can Be Saved From the Wreckage?, published by Temporary Culture -- which is to say Henry Wessells.

Did you notice what I slipped into the above paragraph? Tom Disch came to my reception. The real Tom Disch -- the brilliant author of 334 and Camp Concentration and some of the best serious short fiction ever published in genre. I was definitely hanging out with the big kids.

The reception was held at the shop of James Cummins, Bookseller, which is definitely the first place you want to visit after you've pulled off that big heist you've been planning. Need an autographed first edition of Alice in Wonderland? Maybe some of Tolkien's reference books, complete with his annotations? A good place to start looking.

Down below, among the random shots of the reception (I'll attach names to the people as soon as I find time), is a snap of one of the bathroom walls. Note the three original drawings by Ludwig Bemelman, two of them portraits of Madeline. Not shown is Tolstoy's autograph, which was hanging by the sink.

And now I'm off to NYC again, this time for the Avram Davidson tribute at the Seaport Museum. I do not mind telling you that I feel quite full of myself.












Photos: 1: Sheila Williams, Trina King, Ariel Hameon, Henry Wessells; 2: Mary Jo Duffy and Rina Weisman; 3: bathroom gallery; 4: John Parker, with Thomas Disch in background; 5: Henry Wessells and Martha Millard