Imagine that a dead man arrives in a city.

January 25, 2023 12:53 PM

Paul La Farge died about a week ago. He wrote strange, luminous novels, works of fiction that often did not fit easily into simple categories, and he also was an essayist. Not quite inexplicably, he became known several years ago for the publication of The Night Ocean, a metafictional novel about an author with an eldritch obsession.
posted by cupcakeninja (9 comments total)

The post title is the first line of the prologue of his The Artist of the Missing.
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:55 PM on January 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

Heartbreaking.

I bought Artist of the Missing when it came out, on the basis of its cover and blurbs, and I fell in crazy, swirling love with it.

52 is far too young.

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posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:27 PM on January 25, 2023 [2 favorites]

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posted by Kattullus at 1:30 PM on January 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Night Ocean is really good.


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posted by doctornemo at 2:18 PM on January 25, 2023

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He was an old friend of my cousin.
posted by brujita at 7:45 PM on January 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is terribly sad. The Night Ocean was one of the best novels I've read in the past decade and I had the privilege of meeting La Farge and talking with him about it at NecronomiCon back in 2017. Far too young and a great talent silenced.
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posted by KingEdRa at 2:46 AM on January 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

Oh man. I really liked The Night Ocean.

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posted by thivaia at 5:54 AM on January 26, 2023

NY Times obituary
posted by lowest east side at 6:37 AM on January 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

This writer is new to me. I will check out The Night Ocean and his work generally. Thanks for the post, cupcakeninja. Far too young, indeed.

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posted by Bella Donna at 1:08 AM on January 27, 2023 [1 favorite]