Plaguesongs Crowsongs Ghostsongs

By James Osmer

When the death of Rudy Lafferty is foretold, he starts a two-and-a-half-year journey without the gift of sleep and within the city limits of Tacoma, Washington, attempting to survive in solitude as his hometown is transformed for reasons he does not comprehend.

Through a layered pandemic landscape of emptied houses and broken interactions, of various spirits let loose by catastrophe, and the poetic rants of the infected, Rudy encounters the odd occupants of Tacoma, human and crow, living and deceased.

This novel is not just plaguesongs and crowsongs and ghostsongs. It is also love songs and death songs and moon songs and rain songs and nurse songs and ant songs and starvation songs. It is full of tall tales and books that are written out one copy at a time.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GFK4FPGJ
• ISBN13: 9798218899882
• Release Date: January 2026
• Publisher: James Osmer
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

An epic adventure during troubled times

Plaguesongs, Crowsongs, Ghostsongs by James Osmer. Great art comes from troubled times. I think Plaguesongs, Crowsongs, Ghostsongs falls into this literary category. COVID-19 and the many days it so terribly consumed felt like a fever dream. And a mere handful of years later we have gained a sort of retrospective Tarot deck: public health statistics, scientific reports, journalistic stories and no few personal memories. We recall sorrows and the occasional light of neighbors, friends, colleagues. But mostly, like scar tissue, those days stubbornly remain. Against all of this, Rudy Lafferty, the novel’s itinerant hero, embarks on a journey. Launched by a shocking prediction of imminent death, Rudy is a man on the run and we can hear the clocks ticking. His travels through the streets of an altered Tacoma are an epic odyssey of sights, events, and mystery. On this trek Rudy faces the unknown and combats his mortality with rummaged tools and sheer willpower. To sleep, he knows, is to die. But the alternative is to enter a fugue whereby each morning tilts reality a little further off-axis. Along the way Rudy gains companions who are seemingly mundane yet become epic in deed and viewpoint. Rudy’s is a journey through days and nights that reflect the pandemic as a spiritual walkabout across a haunted, Dali-inspired landscape. And it all works. Osmer has crafted a tight page-turner where event and characters drive the narrative. And the author keeps us guessing. Mysteries arise but are not held at a distance from the reader. There are moments of action and terror whereby it might be one of us who are in the room, on the run, or avoiding capture. There are ghosts here, and frightful presences, but also friends and care and courageous help. And that is where the novel shines. Overall Plaguesongs, Crowsongs, Ghostsongs is a delightfully dark, thoughtful, and poetic journey. It is a wonderful mixture of RA Lafferty, Saad Hossain, and The Twilight Zone. Tacoma is its anchor point. The genius loci of the city might be a line of ants, or a looming hospital, or even Rudy himself. Only the crows of the dark wing likely know. And they only speak with a chosen few. Yet in troubled times each of us should have such companions. Highly recommended!