The Ernie Lafon Family Album

I met the real Ernie LaFon late in life. He was maybe the nicest man I'd ever met. He died very young of cancer. So, Ernie, I named this book's main guy after you. Hope you don't mind. The LaFon's do a lot of very ordinary things; they also do a lot of not ordinary stuff: like wrestle alligators, speak in tongues, turn into cockroaches, navigate a lifeboat, handle snakes, create firework displays; the dad can remove his head, one son can dismember his mom and reassemble her (well, it takes a few attempts); and dance a topless hula. There is a lot of transformation going on, a lot of creative self-invention. The stories are mostly unconnected and unrelated except by using the same characters. It struck me as odd that the final story would end up where everything began, so that those who say the world unwinds in Disney will be gratified. It ends with most of the family bobbing in the death pool like October apples in a barrel after a few days working as volunteers in Disney's Plague World. Ernie Jr survives to tell the LaFon stories.