Tom's books were always excited about going somewhere new, much like Tom. It always amazed me how few people seemed to recognize his abilities and cantankerous talent, but then he didn’t always help himself, either. For while he loved the play and performance of most genres—sf and fantasy and gothic and horror and mysteries and opera and children’s bedtime stories—his work was too good for the boobs and tweenies who mindlessly hid away in them, like troglodytes in caves. Tom had a regal air; he expected to be respected; people, he seemed to think, were supposed to come to him, and he was probably (as usual) right. But I suspect that most of the people who truly loved Tom and understood him best never actually met him. They only needed to read him—and so experience that dependable repeatable sudden thrill of pleasure we all felt when opening up each new story, or essay, or poem by Tom in all his guises: Thomas M. Disch, Tom Disch, and even the ornate, publicity-shy Victorianish lady-novelist, Cassandra Knye.

It wasn’t easy being friends with Tom, and many years ago I gave up trying to speak with him on the phone. He was probably the worst phone conversationalist I have ever known—nothing but a dim uninvolved sequence of slow gentle deeply uninterested yesses and okays and well maybes, as if you were always on the verge of being judged or hung up on. When Tom was alone (but never, it seemed to me, when he had company) he was clearly deeply depressed. A few years ago, he lost his long time partner, Charles Naylor; and while Tom continued to produce fine books up until his death, those books continued to be disregarded. And there was talk that he might lose his rent-controlled book-lined apartment in Union Square. He was not ready to be that alone.

He was one of the few contemporary genre writers who deserves to be read in a hundred years. Maybe Bradbury, maybe Ballard and Moorcock, maybe Elmore Leonard, and very very maybe Tom Disch. He excelled at verse, essays, nasty and illuminating book reviews, teleplays, screenplays, the first interactive computer novel, children’s stories, opera librettos, you name it––roaming through all the sequestrated and self-obsessed literary wonderlands with an axe, chopping everything to bits and putting it back together in ways that pleased him (and, by default, his readers.) There will never be another Tom. I know that’s something they always say in these quickly-written eulogies by admirers and friends, but really, there never will be. We deserved to keep him longer.

Those who haven’t read Tom should try The Priest: A Gothic Romance, his best and most completely successful novel. And any collection of his short stories––he was easily one of the best and most inventive story writers of his generation. His very critical books on contemporary poetry and science fiction––The Castle of Indolence, and The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of––enraged the practitioners of both. And what can you say about that? Only: Good going, Tom.

I didn’t get many letters from Tom over the years, but there are two that I’ll always recall with pleasure. When my son was born, he sent us—out of the blue—a huge beagle-sized deer puppet, with the note: So now you’ll learn how to make animals talk just like your dad. (Tom was the only writer who responded favorably when I sent him what I considered my best book, Animal Planet.) And just a few years previously, after I wrote to say how sorry I was that his best novel, The Priest, had been ignored by so many people, he sent me a brief, self-illustrated post card. It read:

I blame Knopf, the Catholic Church, and God.

Yes, Tom. Me, too. As usual, you were right.