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24 Misc Laff: Fifty-Three Years Ago Today

Writer: Jon Nelson
Jon Nelson
Aug 31
2 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Torcon II, the 31st World Science Fiction Convention, was held in Toronto over the Labor Day weekend of 1973, opening, as it happens, fifty-three years ago today. It was there that Lafferty won his only Hugo Award for "Eurema's Dam," in a tie with Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth's posthumous collaboration "The Meeting." It was the first tie in that category's history. Lafferty always expressed embarrassment over winning the Hugo for a story that he didn’t consider to be one of his best. Here is a rare photo of him from the event.


Black-and-white portrait of R. A. Lafferty wearing glasses, a straw hat, a checked shirt, and a convention badge.

From the same event: Lafferty in a sea of faces. I have zoomed in considerably, yet even among dozens of people, he stands out at once:


Black-and-white photograph of a densely seated science-fiction convention audience.

I like these spot-the-black-capped-gnatcatcher photographs of Lafferty.


Here's one of my favorites. It comes from another huge crowd convention photo, and you want to shout, “Get out of the way!” at the person in front of him because Lafferty’s face is almost completely obscured. But it is him, big domed brow, glasses, and gnomish ear. Notice that the shirt he wears matches the first photo in this post, though this picture comes from a different archive. A visual metaphor for his fiction:


Cropped convention audience photograph focusing on a young attendee wearing glasses.
Close-up of several faces in a crowded convention audience.

R. A. Lafferty seated before curtains, holding a cup and looking down.
R. A. Lafferty standing among convention attendees, partly obscured by a man gesturing in the foreground.

Cropped photograph of R. A. Lafferty standing behind seated convention attendees.

R. A. Lafferty seen in profile among a crowded group of convention attendees.

And then he is all but gone. You can tell he is speaking very quietly, as he did, by how she leans in to hear him:


Narrow cropped photograph of a convention attendee leaning forward and holding a drink.
R. A. Lafferty standing at a convention with his glasses low on his nose, partly obscured by another attendee.
Convention crowd gathered closely around R. A. Lafferty.

I think we can spot him in this one:


Wide black-and-white photograph of a packed auditorium with rows of seated convention attendees.

This may be the rarest photograph of Lafferty. I think only I know about it, though others have no doubt scrolled past it. It's also enlarged so we can see him. Lafferty is drinking at a convention. The image is dark. He is noticeably thin following the health problems of the previous year. I like the photograph for thematic reasons: pour one out for Finnegan.


Dimly lit photograph of people seated together at a convention gathering.

R. A. Lafferty leaning over a small table with drinking glasses and an ashtray.

And here is a favorite photo from later, one that really catches something of the inner character (to me) usually hidden in photographs of him:


Color photograph of R. A. Lafferty and another attendee seated closely together at a convention table.

Finally, a photograph of someone I believe to be Sheryl Smith, Lafferty’s brilliant critic and correspondent:


Color portrait of a woman with short dark hair and large glasses.

Page from Stephen Kimmel's Aimless Musings about R. A. Lafferty, recalling Lafferty at Oklahoma science-fiction conventions.





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