R.A.Lafferty

[Monte Davis]

>> Any Lafferty fans out there in Pynchonia?

Count one here. He gets his punch from fable, folklore and tall tales, so
it feels lighter and more playful than Pynchon's freight of history. And
his novels spin completely out of control. But he's terrific anyway.

The short story "About a Secret Crocodile" (collected in
_Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add?_) is a wonderful short
course in Them and the Counterforce. And my two sons are doing their
damnedest to emulate the Dulanty kids in _The Reefs of Earth_, which I
imprudently read aloud to them a couple years ago.

I fear that nearly all of his books are out of print. The obsessive may
contact Dan Knight at United Mythologies Press, Box 79777, 1995 Weston
Road, Weston, ON, Canada MN9 3W9, for a big selection of privately printed
and otherwise obscure Lafferty (and Gene Wolfe).
 
(Yep, I like the Bobs and TMBG a lot, too.)