Gay science fiction writer Thomas Disch committed suicide on Friday. Reports suggest Disch did the deed because he never got over the 2004 death of his longtime lover, Charles Naylor. [Advocate]
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ursapater
God grant that their souls are together again.
F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
I knew Thomas Disch socially and as a professional colleague through my membership of the Authors Guild, the Dramatists Guild of America (Disch was a playwright, among his other talents) and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, all professional craft guilds.
Disch did tell me, fairly recently, that indeed he had never got over the death of his long-time partner. However, Tom Disch was also faced with mounting present-day problems: his health was declining due to diabetes and other conditions. He had experienced financial reversals, and was about to be evicted from his rent-controlled apartment: an extremely low rent in an extremely prestigious location (off Union Square, near the gay community Chelsea). Disch had no hope of preventing the eviction and no likelihood of finding another apartment remotely as desirable at thrice the rent he had been paying.
Although he may well have had some hope that his suicide would reunite him with Charles Naylor (though Disch never expressed such a hope, to my knowledge), I am quite certain that the prime motivations for his suicide were: to escape his seemingly insurmountable problems and to get revenge on his landlord. (Disch killed himself in the apartment from which he was fighting eviction, thus lumbering the landlord with the expense of cleaning up the blood and other aggro.)
Disch had many gay friends and colleagues, notably the author Samuel R. ‘Chip’ Delany. Although Disch was quite open about his sexuality to me and to his other straight friends, he strenuously objected to being identified as a ‘gay author’, on the very reasonable grounds that very little of his prolific output dealt with sexuality or any aspect of queerness. (I use that term with no negativity intended.) He was openly gay and he was an author, but hardly ever did he write on his own sexuality nor on other gay topics, therefore he was not a ‘gay author’: that was his own opinion, and I heartily endorse it.
I know that Tom Disch will be missed by his many friends (of all sexualities) and by his many devoted readers and audiences. By all means mourn if you choose to do so; nonetheless, his final days indicate to me that he felt he was better off by choosing to leave this world rather than remain in it any longer.
As for a previous poster’s comment on this site — “God grant that their souls (i.e., Tom Disch and Charles Naylor) are together again” — I admire the sentiment but I cannot endorse it, simply because I do not believe in any sort of a god, and I am 99% certain that Tom Disch did not do so either. Certainly he despised organised religion.
Speaking only for myself, I express the hope that Tom Disch and Charles Naylor have each found peace. If they now are somehow finding it together, so much the better.
ursapater
As far as organized religion I pretty much despise them myself. There may be some out there I could respect, but I haven’t really found such a one yet. Unless maybe if you count Zen as a religion.
My belief in God is, of course, personal. Though I have more than sufficient subjective evidence for myself.
I’m sorry to hear that Mr. Disch’s last days were so miserable. No one deserves to have to deal with that kind of crap. (I’m a diabetic too BTW)
Especially when one is old and alone. A fear that I face myself.
I can see where one might lose one’s belief in a benevolent God seeing this happen.