11 Misc Laff: Does Anyone?
- Jon Nelson
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
"No, my books don't stay in print very long, and so they are hard to find. All books go out of print quickly unless they are pretty solid sellers. My only books that get reissued are Past Master, Nine Hundred Grandmothers, and The Reefs of Earth. I've had sixteen novels published and over two hundred short stories, but you'd be lucky to find even one item of mine just walking into a book store."
Short note on something fun. Charles Scribner’s Sons published Lafferty’s Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add? in 1974, which collects seventeen stories, most of them first published in magazines ranging from Galaxy and If to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. The book is dedicated “To Kidd, Gold, Pohl, Jakobsson, Carr, Malzberg, Disch, Klingstein, Hutter, Dickey, Lowndes, Dienstfrey, and all good agents and editors.” Given some of the tart things Lafferty said elsewhere about several of these people, it is a generous dedication.
There is a quirk, though. The stories fall under two alternating running heads, “Secret Places” and “Mean Men,” which divide the volume between what are supposed to be wonder tales, on one hand, and darker pieces, on the other. There is a huge irony in the title, since it turns out that someone did have something further to add. Lafferty did. In the archives, one finds an unpublished text he wrote called “Statement of Incomplete Disavowal by One of the Authors.”
In it, Lafferty works through the "Secret Places" stories one by one and tears the whole category apart:
It is the sub-title that baffles me! Secret places? Where?The Limestone Island of Stutsamutza travels more than a million miles a year, clearly visible in the daylight air, right over our heads. A secret place? Don’t you ever look up?
Then he drives his point harder. The Cimarron Hotel in "Boomer Flats" isn't a secret; it is "known to every catfish-noodler in Payne County." The setting of "In the Garden" isn't a secret; it is just "closed now for repairs, for ultimate repairs. But it’s a banned place, and not a secret place." "The Weirdest World" is Earth itself: Earth isn't a secret. "Look out your door; you can see it.. How is it secret?" The lost city in "Maybe Jones and the City" isn't a secret because "all of us working on the project of reconstructing the city are very open about our doings." He even tells us where Wreckville is: New York City. These places aren't hidden; they are ignored. And that is quite different. By calling them hidden, it is as if the collection goes against the grain of what Lafferty wants to do to the reader, which is to apocalypize the reader to wider field of possibility. If you choose not to see this, it is a problem with you. It isn't as if they are hiding.
The "Mean Men" half of the piece is also full of showmanship. Lafferty adopts the persona of being terrified by his own work. He attributes the darker stories to an "unclean spirit"—the "Other Author"—part of his own schizo-gash:
This brings us to the disquieting business of the Other Author. An unclean spirit whose very name would scorch your ears forced me to transcribe some of these mean men stories. I typed them up with eyes and ears closed, but the sense of shock has not left me. I will not read them myself. I terrify easily.
He amps up the warnings from mild caution ("Sail lightly around The Ultimate Creature") to alarm ("Watch out for The Man Underneath") to mock-hysteria:
Do not under any conditions read "Mad Man" (Oh God, how can I bring out the urgency of this?), do not read "Mad Man"! Unless you’re stubborn. Then read it before the crack-down comes from the Attorney General’s office.
He says that "Groaning Hinges of the World" and "How They Gave It Back" are for those who collect nightmares as a hobby. "Pig in a Pokey" will finish off anyone whose mind is about to go anyhow. It is a funny piece that would be nice to have in print with the stories, because underneath the joshing is a real objection. Lafferty is not just being cranky. He is saying something programmatic. Look up: such things are not hidden.
