Daryl Gregory's "Afterparty"

Daryl Gregory was the 2009 winner of IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award for his first novel Pandemonium. His second novel, The Devil's Alphabet, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award and was named one of the best books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly. His short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and The Year’s Best SF.

Here Gregory dreamcasts an adaptation of his new novel, Afterparty:

I don’t usually have anyone famous in mind while I’m writing… but Lyda Rose, the hard-drinking and technically insane protagonist of Afterparty, was written with this woman in mind. That’s Lucinda Williams. I have no idea if she can act. But I know she could play Lyda. Lemmee explain.

Lyda’s an ex-neuroscientist. Ten years before, she overdosed on a drug she helped create. In small doses, Numinous gives that feeling of grace, of being in touch with some higher power. But OD, and it can install a permanent hallucination of a deity in your brain.

Now, ten years later, an underground church is making Numinous again, and Lyda has to shut them down. Her only companions are Ollie, a neuroatypical escapee from a psych ward, and Lyda’s own personal Jesus, the white-coated angel named Dr. Gloria.

I know Lucinda could play her, because she’s smart, and she knows hard living, and she understands the way the numinous can sneak up on you in the stuttering neon of a late-night bar. She’s a poet, with a voice is like molasses on hot pavement. And all the time I was writing the novel, I kept hearing her voice, and especially this song.

Thank you for “Drunken Angel,” Lucinda. Will you be in my movie?

Visit Daryl Gregory's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue