Visionary science fiction writer Thomas Disch put a bullet in his head on July 4th.

America isn’t very kind to its geniuses.  This author of 334, Fun With Your New Head and On Wings of Song has spent the last few years trying to keep from being evicted from his rent-controlled apartment in New York.  Evidently he had been struggling with money since the death of his longtime partner, Charles Naylor, in 2004.

Disch was nominated for the Hugo Award (science fiction’s top honor) twice and finally won it, ironically, for an excellent piece of nonfiction:  The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of.