OMAC YOUR ENTHUSIASM (25)
By:
June 30, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Seventies (1974–83) sci-fi novels and comics! Series edited by Josh Glenn.
“JOSIE AND THE ELEVATOR” | THOMAS DISCH | 1980
My stepfather subscribed to Omni within the first couple issues of its launch. He’s an illustrator, mostly retired now, but in 1978 he needed to keep up with the trends. Omni was full of them: the chrome and cyberpunk ’80s bursting through the shaggy avocado canvas of the ’70s. It looked and smelled like the porn magazines that were also in our house, because it was the brainchild of Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione. Unlike Penthouse, I was allowed to read it. Like my stepdad, I pored over the artwork; like my mom, I read the stories.
“Josie and the Elevator” was published in the May 1980 issue of Omni. Revisiting it now is like going back to a place I knew as a child, which I suppose it is. It’s smaller than I remember. When I was nine, it was a vast expanse of a story with a mind-bending concept — a bratty little girl keeps poking all the buttons of her building’s elevator, the elevator takes her to hell to teach her a lesson, she gets lost. Hell is our world, but worse. In my memory, there’s also a heaven, but it’s not in there; Disch explicitly says elevators can’t access it. Josie gets stuck for decades and lives a crummy life, until she reaches adulthood and by dint of circumstance gets to return to earth and reconcile with her mom.
Revisiting the story also reveals thoughts and feelings that a kid would never notice, or more precisely that they might feel but not have the words for. Thomas Disch was fond of the metaphor of conveyances to hell, and this was one of a few stories that featured such a thing. He was also a poet, critic, children’s book author, game designer, and theater artist, and took his own life in 2008. I don’t want to speculate about what was going through his head, but his obituary reveals that he faced a series of heartbreaking catastrophes at the end. Disch’s hell looks a lot like depression. It’s the same world as ours, but all one can see is its ugliness: grimy walls covered in low-effort graffiti, murderous drivers, and streets strewn with broken glass. When Josie winds up in hell, she decides to walk crosstown to her father’s house, and gashes her foot on some of it.
Josie’s childhood is irretrievable, like all of ours, but in the three pages of the story, she makes her peace with it. She earns herself a modest life, a tiny divine comedy. One worries that she’ll drop down again; visiting once means you always know it’s there. But I hope not.
OMAC YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mark Kingwell on RIDDLEY WALKER | Carlo Rotella on THE FACE | Sara Ryan on DREAMSNAKE | Matthew Battles on THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST | Ramona Lyons on HIGH-RISE | Adam McGovern on SHADRACH IN THE FURNACE | Deb Chachra on THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY | Tom Nealon on DHALGREN | Michael Grasso on FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID | Stephanie Burt on BRIGHTNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR | Nikhil Singh on SABRE | Gordon Dahlquist on VALIS | Miranda Mellis on THE DISPOSSESSED | Marc Weidenbaum on SOFTWARE | Peggy Nelson on THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER | Josh Glenn on ENGINE SUMMER | Mimi Lipson on A SCANNER DARKLY | Douglas Wolk on THRILLER | David Hirmes on ARZACH | Anthony Miller on THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER | Annie Nocenti on JIMBO | Seth on MR. MACHINE | Alex Brook Lynn on JUDGE DREDD | Joe Alterio on THE INCAL | Jason Grote on JOSIE AND THE ELEVATOR.
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