“Robert Guffey is a lecturer in the Department of English at California State University – Long Beach. His most recent books are Widow of the Amputation and Other Weird Crimes (Eraserhead Press, 2021), a collection of four novellas, and a novel entitled Bela Lugosi’s Dead (Crossroad Press, 2021). 2017 marked the publication of Until the Last Dog Dies (Night Shade/Skyhorse), a darkly satirical novel about a young stand-up comedian who must adapt as best he can to an apocalyptic virus that destroys only the humor centers of the brain. His previous books include the journalistic memoir Chameleo: A Strange But True Story of Invisible Spies, Heroin Addiction, and Homeland Security (OR Books, 2015), which Flavorwire has called, “By many miles, the weirdest and funniest book of [the year].” His first book of nonfiction, Cryptoscatalogy: Conspiracy Theory as Art Form, was published in 2012.
More recently, Guffey has been involved with trying to decode and comprehend the phenomenon known as QAnon, an oddity which seems to fall under his bailiwick. Guffey has a unique take, treating its myriad emerging characters as akin to fantasy figures who live somewhere between reality and the Twilight Zone. Last August, he published a 5-part series on the origins of QAnon in Salon, and, more recently, he has a follow-on 4-part series on the movement in TheEvergreen Review titled, “If You’re Into Eating Children’s Brains, You’ve Got a Four-Year Free Ride: A QAnon Bedtime Story.”
