Sticking in the Mind

Thomas M. Disch committed suicide on the Fourth of July. I meant to comment on it at the time, but the moment slipped by. I was sure that I have certainly read some of his work, but checking in my library turned up only The M.D., not, I think, his best work. That is often reckoned to be Camp Concentration, but I don’t currently possess a copy, and I’m not sure that I have ever read it.

 

So the fact that I only seemed to have one example of his work, and the fact that he is often spoken of in the same breath as Samuel Delaney (whose work is well represented in my collection), surprised me somewhat. Then, a chance remark by Neil Gaiman on his blog made me realise that I had read at least one of his short stories. I read Descending probably forty years ago, and the final image continues to haunt me. It is an unstoppable engine of a story. Go and read it – it won’t take long – and see whether you can ever rid yourself of it. I know that I haven’t. Perhaps the horrible power of that story scared me off from wanting to read too much more of Mr. Disch.