Broken: A Plague Journal

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search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [forever + dust]]: [translate: standard]:

author: […] Dela[…]unay]. title: “of His loss, of His ruin.” publication: Ein Journal des Instituts fur die Erforschung des Heiligenscheineffektes.

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…] and upon his disappearance in 2005, on the eve of his twenty-seventh birthday, friends and family simply assumed that he was hiding from his long-before prophesied death, perhaps on a beach, perhaps on the road. He’d spoken of it all the time, that ouija board prediction; few knew just how much it had terrified him.

Those of his immediate circle who had actually read his books might have recognized in his disappearance the opening theme of his third speculative fiction novel.* Solipsistic, self-indulgent to the extreme of alienating his potential audience, he’d gone into hiding after its completion. He somehow felt responsible for the deaths of fictional characters, whom he seemed to believe actually existed, actually lived and died in nearby parallel existences.

By 2006, people had stopped looking for him.

By 2010, his books had started to come true.

*refer: Hughes, Paul Evan. broken. New York: Silverthought Press, 2010.

broken: Alpha: 1.4.0: 17 December 2002.  He’d disappeared. They searched, friends, family, the authorities. There was no evidence that he’d been to Panama City or Charleston or the writers’ conference. They waited, but there was no word. No body. In time, many forgot. He’d disappeared. 

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search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [criticism + posthumous + negative]]: [translate: standard] :

author: Thara Ruskin. title: “[re][dundant]: PEH Pap in the Age of Transgressive Interdisciplinarity.” publication: NY Times Book Review, 08 February 2010.

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…] (Hughes’s) writing grates, indeed, chafes at the spirit of modern speculative fiction. Steeped in the post-Delany aesthetic, the author’s latest (and presumably last) offering is a confusing, dissatisfying and ultimately offensive collection of “transgression.”

If we are to assume that P.E. Hughs (sic, henceforth) is in fact dead, then the literary world should rejoice that we will no longer be subjected to such self-indulgent rubbish. It is painfully obvious to even the casual reader that what Delany handled with such skill in The Mad Man (1994) and Savage Bent (2007), Hughs maims. Is Broken truly the gift he had intended for his sf idol? Doubtful. Delany, were he dead, would be screaming invective from his grave.

Essentially a string of space-suited dykeouts intermixed with the post-post-modernist ramblings of a mentally-ill young man from upstate New York, Broken is transgressive only in implication…What else would we expect from a self-published author? What he lacks in talent, he makes up for with vivid descriptions of sexual encounters, cannibalism, brutality. In essence, exactly what we don’t need in a novel.

A message to Mr. Hughs, if he is reading this from an island populated by other victims of the age-twenty- seven curse: stay dead. Our slushpiles are already filled with similar pap.

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search results: [[Paul + Hughes] + [criticism + posthumous + negative + response]]: [translate: standard] :

author: SE Colmey. title: a response to “[re][dundant].” publication: NY Times Book Review, 14 February 2010.

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full text:

To Ms. Ruskin:

I guess I’m partly to blame for the book that so upsets you, Paul Hughes’s Broken. I found the manuscript in an old cardboard box he had willed to me should he disappear. Inside the box, there were photographs, letters, cards, things that meant nothing to anyone except him and me. At the bottom, I found a cd-r with the novel on it. Sorry that I disappointed your precious literary world so much. I just thought it was a story that should be told.

What’s your problem with his book? That he wrote things that made people actually feel? That he had a following, people who would read everything he wrote just because of the way he had of drawing us in and making us think we were part of the book or his life? Some of us loved him. I understand it’s your job to read books and write reviews, but your commentary wasn’t a review of the novel, it was an attack on someone dear to many of us, someone who had more love to give than he knew what to do with. He knew how to write the things that most of us could never even begin to put into words, and his words were beautiful, magical things. Some of us regret letting him go.

And yes, I’m the Seattle girl in the books. I’m sure that taints your view of me. I’m too involved in this to see things clearly, right?

It’s now been almost eight years since I saw him, five years since anyone else saw him. I just hope he finally found what he was looking for somewhere out there.

In closing, fuck you, Ms. Ruskin. It was a good book, better than anything you ever could have written. “Pap?” Nice word. Do you feel proud that you have a big vocabulary? Get over yourself.

Sincerely,

Mrs. SE Colmey

Chair, Fine Arts Department Cornish College of the Arts Seattle, WA

p.s. There’s an “e” in his last name. Use it.

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