This morning I learned that Paul LaFarge has died from cancer. I remember seeing him briefly at NecronomiCon-2019 where he participated in the series of round table talks: I never had a chance to talk to him in person.

His “Night Ocean” got overall positive reviews (including one from the New York Times which praised his work for its subtle metafictional elements and the author himself for his love of intertextuality and “nonexistent but real-seeming books, famous people lifted from the historical record and plausibly altered, the whole Borgesian shebang”): it was widely discussed in the Lovecraftian circles.

“A historical tour de force, The Night Ocean is about love and deception; it’s about the way stories earn our trust, and betray it”—that’s how the book was introduced to its readers. I had mixed feelings about this novel of his, but I’m glad I have it in my library. LaFarge was complex and talented: may he rest in peace.