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Essays, Manifestos, Statements, Speeches, Maxims, Epistles, Diaristic Jottings, Narratives, Natural histories, Poems, Plays, Performances, Ramblings, Revelations, and all such ephemera as may appear necessary to bring society into a slight tremolo of confusion and fright at least.

Terror of Earth

Tom La Farge

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A Sun & Moon title.

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In this brilliant and startling collection, Tom La Farge revises and rethinks many traditional plots and characteristics of the fable, concentrating on the French fabliaux, whose medieval practitioners were, in their turn, inspired by the tales of ancient times. Lovers of literature will discover in La Farge's remarkable work a host of radical, occasionally shocking, yet unfailingly poetic renderings of familiar favorites such as "The Fox and the Crow," "The Wolf and the Lamb," and "The Matron of Ephesus," among others. Stories such as "The Image Breaker" and "Marion and Alison" recast classic sexual themes with appropriately erotic language for 1990s readers. Longer pieces, notably "The Innocents," and "The Dead Come Back to Life" are soaring flights of complex imagery.

In 2022, The Tom La Farge Award was created.

Book Review(s)

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION, January 2003

by Henry Wessells

From "Ticket to Bargeton: The Writings of Tom La Farge"

This is a collection of ten fablels, adaptations of medieval beast fables and fabliaux in which La Farge shows considerable range of form. It is the title story, "Terror of Earth," that is most relevant to La Farge's longer works. His version of the story of "The Kite and the Jay" tracks the rivalries and hatreds of families of birds living in an elm tree that is as divided as a West Side co-op board. Told through dramatic excerpts, extracts from the correspondence of the real estate management company of The Elm, literary quotations, and stream of consciousness narrative, "Terror of Earth" is notable for the raucous voices of its protagonists and the evident scatalogical humor. "The arrangement that allows the idle rich on the higher floors to defecate on the sober workers below them will hold little mystery to students of class relations."... READ MORE

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