ABSTRACT
Thomas Michael Disch—Tom to his friends—was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in the winter of 1940. His early years were spent bouncing like a pinball around Minnesota before coming to rest in St. Paul. A literary chameleon, he changed styles and genres as often as an IndyCar racer changes tires. In the decades to come he would bounce from science fiction to utopia, horror, gothic, book reviews, movie scripts, opera librettos, theatre plays, literary criticism, and reams and reams of verse. Utopia is the reciprocal of Armageddon, and neither locality can survive long in the cruel world of reality. More than the text of the utopian constitution, what counts is the context in which it is legislated. Imagine working hard to create this intricate latticework of relationships and working as hard to conceal it behind the drabness of a near future welfare state.
