R. A. Lafferty

Raphael Aloysius "R. A." Lafferty (November 7, 1914March 18, 2002) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer known for his original use of language, metaphor, and narrative structure, Lafferty also wrote a set of four autobiographical novels, a history book, and several novels of historical fiction.

Biography

Lafferty was born on November 7, 1914, in Neola, Iowa to devoutly Catholic parents, Hugh David Lafferty, a broker dealing in oil leases and royalties, and Julia Mary ( Burke), a teacher. He was born the youngest of five siblings. His first name, Raphael, derived from the day on which he was expected to be born (the Feast of St. Raphael). When he was 4, his family moved to Perry, Oklahoma.

He graduated from Cascia Hall,"Sci-fi author R.A. Lafferty rites set", ''Tulsa World'', March 21, 2002. Accessed March 31, 2010. and came of age in the early years of the Great Depression. He later attended night school at the University of Tulsa for two years starting in 1933, mostly studying Maths and German, but left before graduating. He then began to work for Clark Electric Co. in Tulsa and, during this period (1939–42), he attended the International Correspondence School.

Lafferty lived most of his life in Tulsa with his sister, Anna Lafferty. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942. After training in Texas, North Carolina, Florida, and California, he was sent to the South Pacific Area, serving in Australia, New Guinea, Morotai, and the Philippines. When he left the Army in 1946, he had become a 1st Sergeant serving as a staff sergeant and had received an Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal. He never married.

Lafferty did not begin writing until the 1950s, but he wrote thirty-two novels and more than two hundred short stories, most of them at least nominally science fiction. His first published story was "The Wagons" in the ''New Mexico Quarterly Review'' in 1959. His first published science fiction story was "Day of the Glacier", in ''The Original Science Fiction Stories'' in 1960, and his first published novel was ''Past Master'' in 1968.

Until 1971, Lafferty worked as an electrical engineer. After that, he spent his time writing until around 1980, when his output declined due to a stroke. He stopped writing regularly in 1984.

In 1994, he suffered an even more severe stroke. He died on March 18, 2002, aged 87 in a nursing home in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. His collected papers, artifacts, and ephemera were donated to the University of Tulsa's McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives. Other manuscripts are housed in the University of Iowa's Library special collections department.

Lafferty's funeral took place at Christ the King Catholic Church in Tulsa, where he regularly attended daily Mass. He is buried at St. Rose Catholic Cemetery in Perry.

Selected works

Lafferty's quirky prose drew from traditional storytelling styles, largely from the Irish and Native American, and his shaggy-dog characters and tall tales are unique in science fiction. Little of Lafferty's writing is considered typical of the genre. His stories are closer to tall tales than traditional science fiction and are deeply influenced by his Catholic beliefs; ''Fourth Mansions'', for example, draws on '' The Interior Mansions'' of Teresa of Avila.

His writings, both topically and stylistically, are not easy to categorize. Plot is frequently secondary to other elements of Lafferty's writing; while this style has resulted in a loyal cult following, it causes some readers to give up attempting to read his work. Not all of Lafferty's work was science fiction or fantasy; his novel '' Okla Hannali'' (1972), published by University of Oklahoma Press, tells the story of the Choctaw in Mississippi, and after the Trail of Tears, in Oklahoma, through an account of the larger-than-life character Hannali and his large family. This novel was thought of highly by the novelist Dee Brown, author of ''Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee'' (1970), who on the back cover of the edition of published by the University of Oklahoma Press, writes "The history of the Choctaw Indians has been told before and is still being told, but it has never been told in the way Lafferty tells it ... Hannali is a buffalo bull of a man who should become one of the enduring characters in the literature of the American Indian." He also wrote, "It is art applied to history so that the legend of the Choctaws, their great and small men, their splendid humor, and their tragedies are filled with life and breath."

Lafferty's work is represented by Virginia Kidd Literary Agency, which holds a cache of his unpublished manuscripts."R.A. Lafferty (1914–2002), ''Locus'', May 2002, p.9, 68. This includes over a dozen novels, such as ''In The Akrokeraunian Mountains'' and ''Iron Tongue of Midnight'', as well as about eighty short stories and a handful of essays.

Novels

Science fiction

* '' Past Master'', (1968); Hugo Award nominee, 1969; Nebula Award nominee 1968
* '' The Reefs of Earth'' (1968)
* '' Space Chantey'' (1968); a retelling of the Odyssey in SF terms
* ''Fourth Mansions'' (1969); Nebula Award nominee, 1970
* '' The Devil is Dead'' (1971); Nebula Award nominee, 1972 econd chronologically in The Devil is Dead trilogy* '' Arrive at Easterwine: The Autobiography of a Ktistec Machine'' (1971)
* '' Not to Mention Camels'' (1976)
* ''Archipelago'' (1979); irst chronologically in The Devil is Dead trilogy* ''Aurelia'' (1982); Philip K. Dick Award nominee, 1982
* '' Annals of Klepsis'' (1983)
* '' Serpent's Egg'' (1987)
* '' East of Laughter'' (1988)
* '' How Many Miles to Babylon?'' (1989)
* '' The Elliptical Grave'' (1989)
* '' Dotty'' (1990)
* '' More Than Melchisedech'' (1992); hird chronologically in The Devil is Dead trilogy, consists of three novels** '' Tales of Chicago''
** '' Tales of Midnight''
** ''Argo''
* '' Sindbad: The Thirteenth Voyage'' (1989)

Other

* '' The Flame is Green'' (1971); irst in the unfinished Coscuin Chronicles* '' Okla Hannali'' (1972)
* '' Half a Sky'' (1984) econd in the unfinished Coscuin Chronicles

Collections

* ''Nine Hundred Grandmothers'' (1970)
* '' Strange Doings'' (1972)
* '' Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add?'' (1974)
* '' Funnyfingers & Cabrito'' (1976)
* ''Apocalypses'' (1977)
* '' Golden Gate and Other Stories'' (1982)
* '' Through Elegant Eyes'' (1983)
* '' Ringing Changes'' (1984)
* '' The Early Lafferty'' (1988)
* '' The Back Door of History'' (1988)
* '' Strange Skies'' (1988); poems
* '' The Early Lafferty II'' (1990)
* '' Episodes of the Argo'' (1990)
* '' Lafferty in Orbit'' (1991); World Fantasy Award nominee, 1992
* ''Mischief Malicious (And Murder Most Strange)'' (1991)
* '' Iron Tears'' (1992); Philip K. Dick Award nominee, 1992
* '' The Man Who Made Models – The Collected Short Fiction Volume 1'' (2014)
* '' The Man With the Aura – The Collected Short Fiction Volume 2'' (2015)
* ''The Man Underneath – The Collected Short Fiction Volume 3'' (2015)
* ''The Man With The Speckled Eyes – The Collected Short Fiction Volume 4'' (2017)
* ''The Man Who Walked Through Cracks – The Collected Short Fiction Volume 5'' (2018)
* '' The Best of R. A. Lafferty'' (2019)

Non-fiction

* '' The Fall of Rome'' (1971); reprinted in 1993 as ''Alaric: The Day the World Ended''
* '' It's Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs'' (1984)
* '' True Believers'' (1989)
* '' Cranky Old Man from Tulsa'' (1990)

Short stories

* "Through Other Eyes" (''Future Science Fiction'', February 1960)
* "All the People" (''Galaxy Science Fiction'', April 1961)
* "The Weirdest World" (''Galaxy'', June 1961)
* "Aloys" (''Galaxy'', August 1961)
* "Rainbird" (''Galaxy'', December 1961)
* "Dream" (''Galaxy'', June 1962)
* "Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas" (''Galaxy'', December 1962)
* "What the Name of That Town?" (''Galaxy'', October 1964)
* "Slow Tuesday Night" (''Galaxy'', April 1965)
* "Among the Hairy Earthmen" (''Galaxy'', August 1966)
* " Land of the Great Horses" (''Dangerous Visions'', 1967)
* "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne" (''Galaxy'', February 1967)
* "How They Gave It Back" (''Galaxy'', February 1968)
* "McGruder's Marvels" (''Galaxy'', July 1968)
* "Eurema's Dam