April may or may not be the cruellest month, but at least it kicks off with the birthday of my pal Chip Delany! Happy birthday, old boy! I still marvel over the fact that you thought I’d be a good publisher of your work. I took it as a compliment at the time, but now I think it was more an indictment of the publishing industry.
Anyway, here’s a neat article about Chip’s masterpiece, Dhalgren
Photo of “the creole Santa Claus” (even though he’s not creole) by Andreas Laszlo Konrath
Just seconding Gil’s motion to read DHALGREN. Although the fact that it is classified as sci-fi shouldn’t stop you, it’s NOT sci-fi … much more what is nowadays called speculative fiction. No matter WHAT you call it, it’s brilliant and a great read.