randy_byers | John Crowley at the Hugo House

Last night I went to a reading by John Crowley (a.k.a.

crowleycrow) at the Richard Hugo House. He started off with a new short story that will be published in an upcoming Ellen Datlow anthology. Can't remember the title of the story, but it's an intense metaphysical thriller with a twist ending that came from waaaay out of left field. He followed up with passages from his latest novel, Four Freedoms, which is about people working in a bomber factory in the US during WWII. What he read from the novel was fascinating, full of historically allusive detail and perhaps more than a bit of the old American tall tale. Is this Crowley's stab at the Great American Novel?

The Q&A afterwards was just as fascinating, and the thing I took from it was Crowley's continuing enthusiasm for the book. He obviously still really enjoys reading from it and talking about it. His stories about the process of writing the book were vivacious and funny and sharp. He spoke of how he'd come to see that brief period on the American homefront as a kind of strange utopia, where all the normally marginalized people had the country more or less to themselves and were able to take on roles that were usually denied to them.

Afterwards I went to the Elysian for a bite to eat, some fine ale to drink, and to read the introduction to the Wesleyan edition of Bulwer Lytton's The Coming Race, which just arrived the other day. I'm sure all the Rosicrucian and Theosophist connections will be made clear at last! As I was working my way through the pork chile verde, Leslie Howle and Mr. Crowley stopped by my table and invited me to join them with some other folks at another table. And so I did. The conversation was great as we talked about various mysteries, false mysteries, and other esoterica of the world, modern and ancient. John claimed that I looked like Gurdjieff, except without the fiery eyes. Guess as my face gets rounder, I'm losing the Lenin look and gaining the Gurdjieff look. Don't think I'll ever manage the fiery eyes, however.

A lovely literary evening altogether. I guess people are still writing good books in the modern era after all.