new Lafferty Facebook Page

A Facebook 'author' page already exists, but it's been dead in the water for several years now.  I decided to make a page under the category of 'community'.  It's not a 'group' that you ask to be 'added' to, but rather a page that you 'like'.  I'm using it to promote appreciation of Lafferty's body of work.  I'm putting up some nice photo albums of the varied editions of his works.  So far you can see book covers for Past Master, Space Chantey, The Reefs of Earth, Fourth Mansions, and Nine Hundred Grandmothers - all in a number of editions including some Italian, Dutch, and Japanese.  You are also able to comment on any posts, so discussion is available and welcome.  Please go 'like' it and let's build this thing up!  (The aforementioned unused 'author' page had 176 likes, so I imagine we can eventually do better than that as Lafferty's star slowly rises.)

Thanks.

https://www.facebook.com/ralaffertyfans <== just click on this link to go to the FB page

Speaking of Aurelia...

Gregorio and I got a little sidetracked on the 'Nine Hundred Grandmothers' thread into talking about Lafferty's neglected (I'm tempted to say 'little masterpiece') novel, Aurelia (1982). I was saying that where so many of Lafferty's novels feel like an Apocalypse, this one felt more like an Advent. Gregorio took it one step further and wondered whether it was Lafferty's attempt at the genre of 'Gospel'.

I found the book, whilst very funny at times and full of weird and sometimes grotesque wonder, also to be rather poignant and a little sad (in a 'touching' way, though not with any sentimental sense that word might imply). It almost felt like Lafferty's last will and testament or something.

Anyway, with all that rolling round my head and heart I came across the beautifully kitschy illustration by my wife below (posted today on her blog Flannery O'Kafka) and felt it resonating strongly and strangely with this novel about a young girl from another world set down on Earth in a mountainous village - who eventually receives violent rejection.

Amusingly, in this illustration there is also a cameo by Snuffles the alien ursine from Lafferty's short story of that name (or is that King Riksino, 'the cave-bear, the musk-bear', from his short story 'Frog On the Mountain'?) as well as by St Joseph who makes an appearance in Lafferty's novel East of Laughter! (My wife has read none of these, so any real resonances are unintentional on her part.)