Disch entered the field of science fiction at a turning point, as the
pulp adventure stories of its older style began to be challenged by a more serious, darker style. Rather than trying to compete with mainstream writers on the New York literary scene, Disch published work in science fiction and literary magazines, and began to speak with a new voice. His first novel,
The Genocides, appeared in 1965;
Brian W. Aldiss singled it out for praise in a long review in
SF Impulse. Much of his early science fiction was published in English author
Michael Moorcock's New Wave magazine,
New Worlds, including his sixth novel
Camp Concentration in three installments. His reputation in the U.K. was very high and he was ranked with Ballard, Moorcock and Aldiss as a leading writer of literary fantastika. Disch traveled widely and lived in England, Spain, Rome, and Mexico. In spite of this, he remained a New Yorker for the last twenty years of his life, keeping a long-time New York residence overlooking Union Square. He said that "a city like New York, to my mind, is the whole world." Though Disch was an admirer of and friends with the author
Philip K. Dick, Dick wrote an infamous paranoid letter to the
FBI in October 1972 that denounced Disch and suggested that there were coded messages, prompted by a covert organization, in Disch's novel
Camp Concentration. Disch was unaware of this letter at the time, and he would go on to champion the
Philip K. Dick Award. However, in his final novel,
The Word of God, Disch got his revenge with a story in which Dick is in
Hell, unable to write because of
writer's block. In return for a taste of human blood, which will unlock his ability to write, he makes a deal to go back in time and kill Disch's father so that Disch will never be born, and at the same time to kill
Thomas Mann and thereby to ensure that
Hitler wins
World War II. Disch also referred to Dick in a blog post stating "May he rot in hell, and may his royalties corrupt his heirs to the seventh generation." Disch shared his Manhattan apartment and a house in
Barryville, New York, with his partner of three decades, poet and fiction writer Charles Naylor. Although he was
out as a gay man after 1968 and this facet of his life was occasionally foregrounded in his work (most notably in his poetry and
On Wings of Song), he did not try to write to a particular community: "I'm gay myself, but I don't write 'gay' literature." After Naylor's death in 2005, Disch had to abandon the house, as well as fight attempts to evict him from his
rent controlled apartment, and he became steadily more depressed. He wrote on a
LiveJournal account from April 2006 until his death, in which he posted poetry and journal entries. In September and October 2007, shortly before Disch's death, literary critic
Peter Swirski conducted email interviews with Disch concerning his novels
The M.D. A Horror Story and
334. Excerpts from these exchanges were published in Swirski's 2010 study
Literature, Analytically Speaking – Chapter 7 is mostly on
The M.D. – with Disch responding to questions with wit and irony. Disch was an outspoken atheist as well as a satirist; his last novel
The Word of God was published by
Tachyon Publications in the summer of 2008.
Computer game design In 1986, Disch collaborated with
New Jersey software company
Cognetics Corporation and games publisher
Electronic Arts to create the
interactive fiction game
Amnesia for the
Commodore 64,
IBM PC compatibles, and
Apple II computers. The game, based on technology pioneered by Cognetics' Charles Kreitzberg, was produced by
Don Daglow and programmed by Kevin Bentley. It showcased Disch's vivid writing, a stark contrast to other game-programmer-written text adventures of the time, and his passion for the energy of the city of New York. Although the text adventure format was dying by the time
Amnesia was released and it enjoyed limited success, the game pioneered ideas that would later become popular in game design by modeling the entire Manhattan street map south of 110th St. and allowing the player to visit any street corner in that part of the city in their quest to advance the story. Although the limited
floppy disk capacity of the 1980s computers caused much of Disch's original text about the city to be cut, many Manhattan sites and people were described with unique loving distortion through the Disch lens. David Lehman singled out "Amnesia" for praise in his essay "You Are What You Read" in
Newsweek (January 12, 1987). In an interview Lehman asked Disch about the origin of "Amnesia." "Please don't say 'I forget'," Lehman said. "It's true," Disch replied. "I forget my own life all the time, so amnesia was a natural subject for me."
Theater Disch was also known for his work in the theater, both as the critic for
The Nation, from 1987 to 1993,
Poetry Disch's first published poems, under the byline Tom Disch, were written alongside the stories and novels which made his name in the 1960s. His poetry includes experiments within traditional forms, such as a collaborative
sonnet cycle
Highway Sandwiches with
Marilyn Hacker and Charles Platt and
Haikus of an AmPart, while others like
The Dark Old House mix stricter and freer form. Disch's reputation as a poet was solidified by a 1989 midcareer retrospective collection, titled ''Yes, Let's
. A book of new poetry, Dark Verses & Light
, followed in 1991. In 1995 and 2002, Disch published two collections of poetry criticism. He continued to regularly publish poetry in magazines and journals such as Poetry
, Light
, Paris Review
, Partisan Review
, Parnassus: Poetry in Review
and even Theology Today'' (perhaps an odd choice for a long-lapsed Catholic). Disch's poems were anthologized in four editions of
The Best American Poetry—those edited by John Ashbery, Jorie Graham, A. R. Ammons, and John Hollander. Disch published two collections of poetry criticism,
The Castle of Indolence: On Poetry, Poets, and Poetasters and
The Castle of Perseverance: Job Opportunities in Contemporary Poetry. His poetry criticism focuses on what makes poetry work, what makes it popular, and how poetry can re-establish its place in modern popular culture. Near the end of his life he stopped submitting poetry to literary journals unless the journals asked for his contributions. He preferred to publish his poems in his LiveJournal account. In an interview ten days before his death, Disch said, "I write poetry because I think it is the hardest thing I can do well. And so I simply enjoy the doing of it, as an equestrian enjoys spending time on a good horse. Poetry is my good horse." == Works ==