Lovecraft Country audiobook

***Now a TV series on HBO!***”The sphere suddenly burst open like an orange turning inside out, dark rind splitting to reveal a wriggling white pulp. Dozens of pale tentacles shot out, wrapping around the man’s limbs, torso, neck, and head, and yanking him forward to be swallowed whole before he could cry out.”There you are, Mr. Lovecraft. I see you trying to slide out of the frame.Okay, I picked this book up expecting the pages to be brimming with all those fascinating creatures that came from the demented mind of H. P. Lovecraft, but really, for the most part, the creatures in this novel are more of the human kind. I thought I was in for a mind bending, possibly gorish, pulp fiction treat. Just check out the cool cover. However, the book proved to be not only a book of depth, but a book of social consciousness. The cover may have sold me, but the plot kept me completely enthralled. Atticus Turner is returning from a stint in Korea, serving his country. His father has gone missing, and he starts the long journey from Florida to Chicago to start looking for him. For me, a trip of that length is just a long journey, but for Atticus, it is more like an odyssey. Because of the fickleness of fate, I was born caucasian, which pretty much allows me to stop and eat wherever I chose, or stay in whatever hotel I want to, or drive down a highway with very little fear of being stopped by the police. Atticus is African-American; still, in 1954, he has to rely on a guide that his uncle published called ”The Safe Negro Travel Guide”. It provides a list to people of color of places that will actually serve them food and places that will allow them to rent a hotel room. I recently read a book on the baseball player Satchel Paige, and so I was already well aware of the despicable and disheartening way that African-Americans were treated while trying to travel across this country. As to be expected, it was way worse in the South, but there were still issues even in the Northern states. Racism may be cultivated in Southern states, like a birthright, but in the 1950s, a black man could run into it just about anywhere. Yet, once Atticus crosses the Mason/Dixon line, he can’t help but whoop for pleasure, as if he has just survived a storm tossed voyage across an angry sea. Atticus and and his father, Montrose, had a falling out over his enlistment in the army. Matt Ruff does an excellent job explaining both sides of the argument. Atticus’s father was a Black Panther before there was such a thing as a Black Panther. Atticus doesn’t own the same level of anger at the forces aligned against him as his father does, but circumstances are about to change that may alter his opinion.It turns out that the Braithwhite family has shackled Montrose in the basement of their grand, New England manor with the hope that Atticus will come to rescue his father. What makes this even more insidious is the Braithwhite family used to own the Turner family, a few generations ago, as slaves. The Braithwhite family are part of a secret cabal called The Order of the Ancient Dawn. Atticus soon learns that he is important to them, not because he is black, but because he has Braithwhite blood. Wait...hmmm...how could that be? Could it be the Lord of the Manor stuck his willie in Atticus’s great-grandmother? And then condemned his own offspring to a life of slavery? There are so many affronts against morality in this situation that it is difficult to list the actual order of most unethical to least unethical. Needless to say, things get really, really weird. One of my favorite sections of the book was titled ”Jekyll in Hyde Park,” where Ruby, an aunt of Atticus’s, has her own run in with Caleb Braithwhite. He offers her a potion that allows her for a time to be a tall, beautiful, confident white woman. The difference from being that woman and the reasonably attractive black woman she really is are like having a lump of coal in one hand and a diamond in the other. ”Now the hand of Henry Jekyll was professional in shape and size. It was large, firm, white, and comely. But the hand which I now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-London morning, lying half shut on the bedclothes, was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde.”Ahhh, I love Stevenson. The stories are all interconnected as we learn more about the Braithwhite family and their long association and obsession with the Turner family. There is magic, and other worlds, and nightmares, and dreamscapes, all with the overall arching theme of the world of Lovecraft and pulp novels. Lovecraft as OscarI did think to myself that Matt Ruff might have also been making some commentary on the controversy of the Lovecraft image being the Oscar of the World Fantasy Awards. We have discovered much about Lovecraft, and the more we learn, the more tarnished his image becomes. He was an unapologetic racist and misogynist. Past winners of the World Fantasy Award must have to buff the blackening from the head of his statue quite often. If you want to continue enjoying Lovecraft’s fiction and his truly outrageously creative mind, I would suggest not reading too much about the actual man. This book is an ode to pulp novels, but also a very revealing book about all aspects of what it was like to be a person of color in the 1950s, trying to survive a “Lovecraft Country” that was intent on disrupting their attempts to have lives of substance. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.comI also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

After becoming addicted to the tv series, I couldn’t help myself and purchased the book to see how the book’s adaptation improved. Of course the original book is a little different from the HBO adaptation. It is a great mash up of pulp fiction-science fiction-horror-dark comedy- thriller-action genres with realistic, dark criticism of racism: a bunch of stories with different characters of Turner family encounter with the same epic villain Caleb Braithwaite. The stories take place at mid to late 40s at Jim Crow era. And it starts with Atticus Turner’s story ( just like the series did) who recently served his country in Korea and his journey from Florida to Chicago to find his missing father by following the published guide to keep him safe from any trouble named “Safe Negro Travel Guide”!!!!That guide recommends the hotels he can be allowed to stay during his travel. He and his father had a fall out before he went to Korea. His father is more radical, determined to fight against injustice and racism and disapproves his son’s decision to fight for the country where he has never been respected. (His father might be one of the founders of Black Panther) Atticus finds out his father’s whereabouts: he might be kept as prisoner in a New England Manor owned by Braithwaite family. Well, as soon as he arrives at the haunted manor, he will find out nothing as it seems and there are some dark secrets will come out that connect the both families. It’s a fast pacing, action packed reading consist a great harmony of different genres and genuine, important messages about intolerance, darkest and most shameful ugly face of racism. After reading it, I get more excited to see new episodes of the series. Lovecraft is well known dark mastermind of horror stories and it’s memorable blood freezing, eerie, dark creatures. I always like to differentiate an author’s works and his or her true self, political opinions. Of course his racial opinions were truly disturbing which I truly irritated them but let’s not forget about his unique contributions to the horror genre. As a person we are free to detest him. But it shouldn’t stop us to show respect to his works. It’s obvious that he couldn’t achieve to be open minded and objective person throughout his life journey but we can broaden our horizons by seeing things from different people’s perspectives.Overall: I enjoyed these multi layered characters, head spinning harmony of genres and powerful messages of the stories. Highly recommended to the bookworms who can appreciate real good taste of literature.

This is a difficult book for me to review. I think I love it in spite of itself. Or maybe I love it in spite of stuffy old me.You see, if I filled out a checklist of what I like in a novel, Lovecraft Country wouldn’t get many checks. The prose itself isn’t much (no spare elegance, no stylistic flourishes); the characters, though amiable, lack depth and definition; the plot is rambling, episodic, and not all that interesting in itself; and, although it’s got the name Lovecraft in the title, the supernatural element of the book isn’t really scary at all.So don’t read it, right? Wrong!Lovecraft Country is the story of Atticus Turner and his family, a bunch of bookish, nerdy African Americans—including one would-be comic book artist/writer, one would-be astronomer, one science fiction fan, and one publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—who live in Chicago in the 1950’s. In the course of a road trip to find missing father Montrose, the Turners experience all the challenges of a racist America (Jim Crow, “sunset towns,” vicious local sheriffs, etc.) only to discover along the way that they have a sinister connection to the Braithwhites, a family of white wizards—not Klu Klux Klan wizards, the devil-summoning kind—residing in an obscure part of Massachusetts. It seems the Braithwhites have plans for Atticus and his family,and they are very evil plans indeed.Ruff writes a fast moving, energetic prose which catches and keeps your attention, and fills his book with varied incidents and frequent changes of scenery. His characters, although not deep, are extremely likable, and he makes us care about their fates. Although the book’s occult elements aren’t terrifying—not even very suspenseful—the descriptions of racist America in all its ‘50’s glory are horrific. Ruff has done his historical research well, and he presents us with an America filled with obstacles and fraught with danger for every person of color. The real miracle of the book, though, is that Ruff manages to accomplish all this with both lightness and reverence, fashioning an adventure saga about Black Americans confronting a racist world without a hint of liberal tentativeness or lofty condescension. Lovecraft Country is a work of cultural appreciation, not appropriation, and is also an excellent adventure novel too.There’s a great moment near the end of Lovecraft Country when the wizard Braithwhite tries to threaten the Turners, and the entire clan roars at him with laughter. ”What?” Braithwhite shouted, looking at them as if they were crazy. “What’s so funny?” But for a long while they were laughing too hard to answer.“Oh, Mr. Braithwhite,” Atticus said finally, wiping tears from his eyes. “What is it you’re trying to scare me with? You think I don’t know what country I live in? I know. We all do. We always have. You’re the one who doesn’t understand.”

** spoiler alert ** Re-read, 7/22/20:I'm going to go ahead and give it another star. It's really holding its own for me and enjoyed it, even more, the second time. Ah, the Great White hope, indeed.F*** this S***.:)Suffice to say, the '50s racism, if it was even half as bad as it is portrayed here, still seems rather freaking familiar as the kind we have today. Without the riots OR the solidarity, of course.Original review:There are two ways that I enjoyed this novel.The first was the racism angle and the happy ending despite all the horrible things that happen in this tale and against blacks in the good-ole-boy country in 50's 'murica. Racism, enslavement on multiple levels, the desire to try on another skin, all of it was both a repudiation of fantasy and pulp fiction's other skewed-ness way from black heroes. This novel dealt with the issues head-on and I liked it. :)The second was how the novel was also a huge sample-dish of horror tropes, a love story to cultists, sorcerers, well-researched secret societies, evil doll tropes, tentacles, paranoia, haunted houses, and so much more. The author knows his shit. Lovecraft? Sure, but think of a slightly milder take, not quite attempting to draw us deeper and deeper into the depths of awe-turned-horror, but skipping us across strangeness to strangeness across the entire tale, sampling a bit of each dish while focusing more on character-journeys that don't quite make them go insane or get pulled into other dimensions or get eaten by non-euclidian geometries. This is an anti-racist funhouse of horrors. :) Of course, if you are subject to racism, yourself, you might just fall into this tale and call it a novel of pure horror, but at least you can rest assured that there will be a happy ending. :)

Forgive me for going with an obvious joke, but to re-phrase a Hunter S. Thompson quote:"We can't stop here! This is Lovecraft Country!"In this case, what is Lovecraft Country? Well, from a typical trope standpoint, Lovecraft Country is a twisted version of rural New England, where a good portion of author H. P. Lovecraft's fiction took place. It's a place where monsters lurked, where horror reigns supreme, where the world is uncaring and indifferent to your suffering. In other words, very much like 1950s America if you were not white. This book follows an African American surviving in Jim Crow era America. They face racism, prejudice and horror, some of which happens to come from supernatural entities. While this book is stated to be a novel, it really feels more like a short story collection, where all the stories just happen to be connected. As such I will do my typical short story collection review, and give a mini-review for each story. Lovecraft Country - Easily the most "Lovecraftian" story in the collection. The sense of being in a world out of your control was felt heavily here, but despite the underground sorcerer club presented, the real threat really was the reality of the world around our characters. The sheriff they run into on the road was a more frighting figure than anything supernatural. 4/5 stars.Dreams of the Which House - Your classic haunted house story, but again the sense that the real world horrors are worse than the supernatural. After all, the ghost here was threatening, but compare that to the neighbors. 4/5 starsAbdullah's Book - I loved this story. It's really not the best from a "horror" stand point, but it feels the most like a pulp adventure story. I mean, it's a museum heist to steal a magic book, filled with Indian Jones-like traps. This story is just fun, and filled with humor. That's not to say it is without merit from an analysis standpoint, you'll note that Abdullah's book is in the title, not the one they are actually out to steal. 4/5 starsHippolyta Disturbs the Universe - My least favorite in the collection. Not bad by any means, but personally the least interesting. I liked the "twist" (what was in the box), but the most interesting aspect to me was the history of the discovery of Pluto discussed at the start. 3/5 starsJekyll in Hyde Park - Honestly, I started this one thinking it would be my least favorite. I'm not a fan of "body swap" stories, and I had a pretty good clue as to the twist here. While some aspects of this were interesting (Ruff did a really good job showing Ruby's different experiences) where this story really worked for me was the party at the end. It gave us more insight into Braithwhite and made him one of the more interesting villains I've read in some time. He really does come off as the charming devil figure, able to offer temptations for a price and always multiple steps ahead. 4/5 starsThe Narrow House - The most depressing story in the collection in my opinion. We really are getting two tales here, the story of the inhabitants of the house and Montrose revising the worst night of his life. The story made his past actions more relatable, and also gave a pretty good insight into his past interactions with Atticus. 3.5/5 starsHorace and the Devil Doll - I was wondering if we would get into police relations, and as uncomfortable as a topic as it is, I'm glad we did. What's scarier; your classic devil doll, or a police force that is actively out to get you? 3/5 starsThe Mark of Cain - Honestly don't have much to say about this one from an analysis standpoint. A satisfactory conclusion and I like how it retied the stories all together. (view spoiler)[It may have one of the darkest examples of an "everybody laughs" ending I've ever seen, after Caleb threatens them that everyone will be out to get them without his protection, and they react with that's just how the world is. (hide spoiler)]4/5 starsYou'll note, all the ratings are pretty high to middle ground. There is not a single bad story in this book, and viewed together they make a wonderful tale. I loved that as a whole this was an examination of race in horror overall, not just Lovecraft (who sadly was a racist, and not in a "fair for his day" sort of way, but an outright racist even at the time). We got several classics stories (haunted houses, body swaps, evil dolls and so on) reexamined with this idea in mind. I liked how Ruff played with the Lovecraftian horror sense of a world that doesn't care about it's protagonists and constant hopelessness, but here showing that as the everyday life of these people. What can the monsters possibly add that life in Jim Crow America hasn't already thrown at them?Finally, the sense of humor was very much appreciated. Honestly, without it, this one would have been a tough read. The real world aspects are so consistently worse than the horror aspects, making it even bleaker, which is a sad statement on the world. One last thing before I go, I've seen several modern authors tackle Lovecraft's racism (it's one of the things pretty much guaranteed in any Lovecraft-spin today). It's not hard to see why. He's one of the most celebrated horror authors for a reason. His work was hugely influential and some of the tales genuinely frighting. Even today he has a huge fan base, but many fans struggle with this. Is it appropriate to still like his fiction, despite the fact that in real life he was a colossal asshole? Well, the book tries to address this directly.“But stories are like people, Atticus. Loving them doesn’t make them perfect. You try to cherish their virtues and overlook their flaws. The flaws are still there, though. ""But you don’t get mad. Not like Pop does.""No, that’s true, I don’t get mad. Not at stories. They do disappoint me sometimes." He looked at the shelves. "Sometimes, they stab me in the heart” 4/5 stars.My personal rankings of the stories (from best to worst):Dreams of the Which House Jekyll in Hyde Park Lovecraft Country Abdullah's Book The Mark of Cain The Narrow House Horace and the Devil Doll Hippolyta Disturbs the Universe

This book hurt me even more this time than it did when I first read it three years ago. In a good, necessary way. It is the kind of speculative fiction work that does an incredible job of changing a reader's perspective, that makes them think about things in an entirely different way, and shines a light on things you didn't know you needed to see.Maybe it's even more affective this time around because I have read a ton of James Baldwin and read up on sundown towns and the Tulsa massacre since my first go with this book, but my brain is now equipped with more information to contextualize Atticus and Letitia's stories.This book acknowledges that some stories will have a hold on our imagination forever, that you can love them even if you know they come from a rotten place, and that no monster will ever be as scary as people can be when they have hate in their hearts.**I remember an early episode of "Supernatural", in which the Winchester brothers have to deal with a family of rednecks who hunt, torture and kill humans for sport. Dean finds a Mason jar filled with human teeth in their cottage, and he says something like: "Demons, I get. But this?! This is messed up!". I couldn't agree more with him: monsters and weird creatures from the beyond are scary, but their motivations are relatively easy to figure out: they want your blood, your soul or perhaps your skull. Human cruelty, however, is something that completely defies my understanding.This might be what makes "Lovecraft Country" work as well as it does. We get the wonderful and spooky creature H.P. spawned with his mind, but we can also see them contrasted with some of the things humans did to each other and have to wonder: which is scarier? Which is worse? Which would I rather have to deal with?Atticus Turner is a veteran, freshly returned from Korea. He gets a cryptic message from his father Montrose, asking him to meet him in his hometown of Chicago because he found something about Atticus' mother's ancestry that he needs to tell him. But when Atticus gets to Chicago, his father has disappeared, leaving behind clues that he might be somewhere in New England. Together with his science-fiction loving uncle George and his childhood friend Letitia, Atticus decides to go find his father.George is the publisher of "The Safe Negro Travel Guide", a book listing gas stations, restaurants, hotels and shops across the country that will welcome black customers - because in the era of Jim Crow, the open American road is still not safe for everyone to travel. Atticus, George and Letitia follow Montrose's trail to the manor of Samuel Braithwhite, the leader of a strange group called the Order of the Ancient Dawn. It soon becomes obvious to Atticus that his father was merely bait: he is what these men want, in order to fulfill an occult goal they have been working on for over a hundred years.It is a rare book that brings together the fun of pulp and the thought-provoking insight of a writer with a strong social consciousness. It's no secret that the more we dig up on dear Mr. Lovecraft, the more he turns out to have been a huge bigot; I know many fans of his work who don't really know how to process this, bringing up once again the age old debate of separating the individual from their body of work. Matt Ruff took what I've always loved about Lovecraftian horror and put it in a brand new light, by pairing them with more mundane horrors: the dangers of driving the roads when the police officers are hostile, the impossibility of buying and retaining property without risking your life, the enticing possibility of stepping through the looking-glass... Each chapter is a short story, but they only work as a continued narrative: each story focuses on one member of Atticus' family and how both the eldritch and day-to-day horrors of the world knock them about. This story takes place in an America that is not as far back in the rearview mirror as we would like to think and the characters are good, flawed people, frustrated by the daily injustices they struggle with. They have to summon a great deal of cleverness and determination to face the Order. It must be noted that Ruff is quite a sci-fi/fantasy erudite himself: right off from the beginning, there are references not only to Lovecraft, but to other amazing authors such as Bradbury, Heinlein, Stevenson and other masters. Just the sort of stuff to make a genre fiction lover such as myself feel all excited to keep reading.A lot of books about racial prejudices have made their way into my library lately. Am I reacting to the bigoted political climate that has been making headlines over the past few months? I don't know, but it is definitely something that is weighing on my mind these days. "Lovecraft Country" now sits next to my Octavia Butler books and just like her work, I can't recommend it enough. An eye-opening wink to a great story teller (who was not a very nice guy), beautifully executed.**I watched the TV show adaptation of this book on HBO, and I enjoyed it, but with reservations. The pacing of the first few episodes is all over the place, and they made some changes to the plot and the characters (and I've been thinking about it, and I get why they did it, it was important to let those characters talk about their experiences beyond what was on the page). That said, it's visually stunning, the music is fantastic (if occasionally anachronistic) and Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett's performances are amazing. Definitely worth checking out.

Terrifying, poignant, funny, infuriating. A strange combination that works.

An absolutely visceral description of experienced racism, and a powerful allegory of institutional racism in the US, set in first half of the 20th century US. Also, a most impressive creative rendering and inversion of H. P. Lovecraft's (racist & misogynist) work. Lovecraft Country blew me away. I can't remember the last time I read a book that was so complex and so ... connected-each theme, each arc, each character so compelling in their own right, but also so clearly coherent and related to others in the context of the whole. This book gives new meaning to the adage, "the whole is larger than the sum of its parts".First, the characters are so empathetically drawn. And I don't mean sympathetically, which would imply pity or some other emotion that would be akin to a patronizing tone. I mean, we are drawn into their experiences through poignant descriptions of external events, not through an analysis of the characters' emotions, in such a way that we are called on to imagine their emotions. And, of course, this is itself an emotive, not purely cognitive experience. A more concrete example: the novel opens with a man, Atticus, driving home. He is stopped and harassed by a cop. He has to use a restroom but he is turned away from public ones reserved for whites, and so he takes a moment on the highway in the bushes. He then worries about which roads to take, because on some, he will certainly meet violence. He consults a publication he hangs on to for dear life, "The Safe Negro Travel Guide", to locate a place he can sleep the night, otherwise he will have to do so in his car. No preaching from Ruff, no philosophizing, but still, the reader is right there with/ as Atticus, and one can't help but feel the absolute despair/ anger at the injustice/ compliance/ resistance/ silencing effect of the situation. He's just trying to get home, what the hell...Second, the structure of Lovecraft Country is brilliant and works so well to both convey the story and to mirror its message. The novel consists of interconnected stories, all featuring the same cast of (~12) characters, the ancestors of a black family and of their previous white "owners". Each of these stories is fascinating in its own right, and offers a "twist" on Lovecraftian lore- there is metamorphposis (a potion that can turn a black person white), time-travel (to distant planets, on which blacks have been exiled), hunted houses (with ghosts "tamed" and befriended by a determined black woman who moves in and refuses to be deterred by ghosts from the past), nightmares that reflect past horrors not experienced by the dreamer but by his ancestors (lynchings), and more. Throughout it all, it soon becomes clear that the "monsters" Ruff conjures are only mirrors or incarnations of racism -both "personal" and institutionalized.The broader arc that ties these narratives together is the relationship between the characters, especially that between the ancestors of the slave-owners and of the former slaves. In true Lovecraftian style, there are lodges of power-hungry whites eager to use the black family (who are in fact descendants of the slave-owners as well as those of slaves) for their own ends. And, although in each story, it seems as if the black family only comes out unscathed due to the protection of one of these white men, in the end it is their prioritization of family and relationships that prevails, even over their patronizing "protector". So, as each vignette is a reflection of the particulars and manifestations of racism, the grander arc is an indictment of systemic racism.HIGHLY Recommended!

Werewolves don’t scare me. Neither do the walking dead (zombies), Voldemort, body-snatchers, Chuckie, Jason or Freddie. People who have lost or buried or under-developed their empathy. Who see black and brown and female and trans bodies as things to be used, or scorned or destroyed. Those are the true monsters. Reading Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country isn’t just a look at the bigotry of the past. Jim Crow isn’t dead. He just got a new suit, had a makeover. Now he wears thousand-dollar suits, has a chic hair cut, and calls himself James Corvid. Ruff’s novel is loosely structured as a linked short story collection. It follows the Turners, a black middle class family in Chicago and their dealings with a white male sorcerer who wants to control an occult empire. Secret societies, inter-dimensional travel, eidolons, cosmic horrors, possessed dolls and body-thievery all appear in these tales, intertwined with the mundane horrors of life under the heel of racism.Ruff does imbue the narrative with a sense of wonder. The appearance of Lovecraftian menagerie didn’t terrify me. It was thrilling and exciting and magical. But the big bad, Caleb Braithwaite, he was horrifying. He was a literal personification of Jim Crow--or, rather, James Corvid. Braithwaite, like Corvid, is outwardly handsome and charming. But he is determined to uphold his superiority, and uses (black) as pawns in his narcissistic game. He is the monster. Like the Ballad of Black Tom (LaValle), LC directly challenges the undercurrent of white supremacy that undergrids H.P.’s fiction.

I have heard Lovecraft Country mentioned quite often recently, I think in connection to the impending TV series adaptation. The title alone intrigued me because I enjoy Lovecraft when he is at his best (at his worst, not so much) as my long-winded review of The Best of H.P. Lovecraft will attest. I thought Lovecraft Country is going to be a Lovecraft pastiche of some kind, with Cthulhu and friends driving people insane just by giving them a funny look. I peeked at the synopsis and I was surprised to find that the book is apparently about the adventures of some black characters during the Jim Crow era when racism in the US was in full swing. Having already decided to read the book I did not read the summary in detail, so I suspected that this may not even be primarily a novel of the fantasy/horror genre; perhaps it is more of an allegory of racism. As an SF/F/H nerd, I wanted the book to have its fair share of fantastical elements, not just be a work of historical fiction about racism in the 50s. The first fifty or so pages do read like mainstream fiction, a very vivid depiction of how a black man is treated by the police and most of the white Americans they come across. However, soon the overtly supernatural side of the narrative kicks in and genre fans should have nothing to complain about. As for the racism, it is always there in the background as another layer of difficulties faced by the central characters.The structure of the book also surprised me, I thought the entire novel was going to be centered on Atticus as the protagonist. This is not the case at all, Lovecraft Country is episodic in structure, with a different protagonist in most of the chapters. Each chapter has its own story arc with a dangling plot thread, these threads are tied together in the novel’s finale. The first chapter tells the story of Atticus’ journey to Ardham in search of his father, accompanied by his uncle and cousin. They encounter racists, red necks, monsters and lodges of sorcerers (who are also racists!). The second chapter concerns Atticus’ cousin, Letitia and her purchase of a haunted house in a racist neighborhood and how she copes like a champ. Her chapter reaches a surprising conclusion and the narrative switches to an entirely different story arc. Later chapters involve weird tech, aliens, shape shifting, more ghosts, monsters, sorcery, and wizards. Each chapter is fun to read, fast paced, thrilling and often funny. If you are looking for actual scares you may be disappointed though; this book is more boisterous supernatural high jinks than horror. On the other hand, there is never a dull moment.As for the more serious or “commentary” side of the novel, the shameless, overt racism as depicted is quite shocking. It is hard to believe that fellow human beings were treated with such disdain, hatred, and disrespect solely on the basis of their skin colour. That such unreasoning prejudice continues to exist today – albeit to a lesser degree - is dispiriting. My only reservation about this aspect of the book is that there is not one single decent white character in the narrative; this is less believable than the supernatural plotline.Personally, I don’t like novels that are purely allegorical, I feel that worthwhile novels should have sufficient entertaining value. Regardless of the seriousness of the themes, the storytelling side should not be neglected. I am happy with how Matt Ruff balances the themes and the supernatural adventures in Lovecraft Country. Both sides of the narrative are very well integrated and the book is both entertaining and thought-provoking. This is my first Matt Ruff book, I love his prose style, storytelling, and subtle humour; I will be back for more.Quotes:“You require me,” Atticus said. “To be your magic Negro?”“Ruby, curvy and dark, suggested a youthful Momma—but a Momma who could be pushed around. Her pliability wasn’t limitless, though, and there was a core of genuine Momma within her that could emerge, given time, like a mountain rising from the sea. The trick was getting what you wanted from her before you ran aground.” “Cartons containing the Spring 1955 edition of The Safe Negro Travel Guide were stacked up against the wall. George thumbed through a loose copy, inhaling fresh ink and wondering, as always, how much longer it would be before he could cease publication and change the name of the business to the plain old Berry Travel Agency. A few more years, probably.” Quotes from an interview with Matt Ruff at the back of the book:“But the real reason he’d keep running into monsters was because he was black, and when you’re black in America, there’s always a monster. Sometimes it’s Lovecraftian Elder Gods; sometimes it’s the police, or the Klan, or the Registrar of Voters.”“Lovecraft was tapping into these universal themes of horror that resonate even if you’re not a white supremacist. I wish he’d been a better person, or blessed with better mentors. But as a storyteller, I can still learn from him.”

I only found out about this book thanks to seeing the trailer for the Netflix adaptation. The way bookworms sometimes find great stories is almost creepy. *lol*We’re in America in the 50s. Slavery might be over but racism certainly isn’t. If you think what you’re seeing nowadays is bad, strap yourself in, because this will be a very uncomfortable ride for you. As it should be because all the frisking, all the crimes black people didn’t commit but were punished (even killed) for, the everyday discrimination, … truly horrible and horrific. We first meet Atticus, an Army veteran in search of his father. That way, we’re introduced to a cult of (white) men called Adamite Order of the Ancient Dawn that has actual abilities (like putting glamours on cars so you won’t be bothered when driving through a certain area or changing someone’s appearance). They need Atticus because he comes from a powerful bloodline necessary for a ritual they want to perform.Thus begins a wild romp through different smaller stories, each featuring what were at first secondary characters. They all get their spotlight and I’m happy to report that the females shone as brightly as the males. But the center stage is reserved for this weird area of the world (hello, Cairo, old friend), where what appears to be magic - or significantly enough advanced tech - results in portals to alternate dimensions being opened and used, rituals going wrong (depending on your point of view) and the wrong power being unleashed. Superhero / supervillain style. Ruby, Leticia, Atticus, Caleb* and many more try to survive this mosaic-like plot as well as haunted houses, fighting for a future in a world where magical monsters populate the woods just as much as racist sheriffs. (* It was interesting that Caleb of all people was making, through his actions, the point that the color of one’s skin really doesn’t matter.)The writing style was very engaging and kept me at the edge of my seat, trying to get my bearings. But it also made me laugh out loud (Leticia and her shotgun in the haunted house). I loved all the nods to classics of the supernatural and horror genre (not just Lovecraft’s) and was quite fascinated by the magic system, the atlas, the entire set-up and how the author combined all those elements perfectly. This accurate depiction of the 50s in America from the point of view of black people getting mashed together with this kind of supernatural horror resulted in a deliciously surreal tale and emphasized the strange world people had to live and survive in.A wonderful, fantastic tale! Can’t wait for the screen adaptation.

I saw Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff at Barnes and Noble and I was intrigued when I saw the cover. I found it on Libby and decided to try the audiobook which is narrated by Kevin Kenerly. I love the lore behind HP Lovecraft’s work but HP Lovecraft is racist, so it is very difficult to read. In fact, I couldn’t even finish it. I ended up just researching the lore instead. This book addresses the racism embedded in Lovecraft’s work and I was immediately hooked.The book is broken up into different stories but are all linked. The book takes place in Jim Crow America. Readers are introduced to Atticus Turner. He is an army veteran and traveling back home. When he gets there, he finds that his father is gone. With the help of his uncle, George, and friend, Letitia—they go on a journey to find him. George is the publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide. It isn’t safe for Black men and women to travel at will in Jim Crow America. So this guide is critical for their safety. When they discover where Montrose has gone, they will need it just to get to their destination safely.This book is everything. It channeled everything I love about the LORE of HP Lovecraft’s work and the terrorism that white America inflicted on Black Americans. This pulp fiction novel really asks the question of who is the real monster? I think it is quite wonderful that this book is named after Lovecraft, the lore is inspired by Lovecraft, but it is Black men and women who are the REAL heroes in this story. The characters are fantastic—and when I say fantastic, I mean they are some of the best characters I have read this year.I also love how the book is broken up into different stories but they are linked together. I am really looking forward to watching the HBO series. I rate this audiobook 5 stars!

While George busied himself in the kitchen, Atticus went out to the front parlor, which in childhood had served him as both library and reading room. The bookshelves were divided into his and hers, Aunt Hippolyta’s interests running primarily to science and natural history, with a smattering of Jane Austen. George gave a nod to respectable literature but reserved his deepest passion and most of his shelf space for the genres of pulp: science fiction, fantasy, mysteries and detective stories, horror and weird tales. Atticus’s shared devotion to these mostly white-authored genres had been a source of ongoing struggle with his father. George, as Montrose’s older brother, was largely immune to his scorn and could always tell him to keep his opinions to himself. Atticus didn’t have that privilege. If his father was in a mood to debate his tastes in reading, he had no choice but to oblige him. There was usually plenty to argue about. Edgar Rice Burroughs, for example, offered a wealth of critical fodder with his Tarzan stories (was it even necessary to list all the problems Montrose had with Tarzan, starting with the very idea of him?), or his Barsoom series, whose protagonist John Carter had been a captain in the Army of Northern Virginia before becoming a Martian warlord. “A Confederate officer?” Atticus’s father had said, appalled. “That’s the hero?” When Atticus tried to suggest it wasn’t that bad since technically John Carter was an ex-Confederate, his father scoffed: “Ex-Confederate? What’s that, like an ex-Nazi? The man fought for slavery! You don’t get to put an ‘ex-’ in front of that!” Montrose could have simply forbidden him to read such things. Atticus knew other sons whose fathers had done that, who’d thrown their comic books and Amazing Stories collections into the trash. But Montrose, with limited exceptions, didn’t believe in book-banning. He always insisted he just wanted Atticus to think about what he read, rather than imbibing it mindlessly, and Atticus, if he were being honest, had to admit that was a reasonable goal. But if it was fair to acknowledge his father’s good intentions, it also seemed fair to point out that his father was a belligerent man who enjoyed having cause to pick on him. Uncle George wasn’t much help. “It’s not as if your father’s wrong,” he said one time when Atticus was complaining. “But you love these stories!” Atticus said. “You love them as much as I do!” “I do love them,” George agreed. “But stories are like people, Atticus. Loving them doesn’t make them perfect. You try to cherish their virtues and overlook their flaws. The flaws are still there, though.” “But you don’t get mad. Not like Pop does.” “No, that’s true, I don’t get mad. Not at stories. They do disappoint me sometimes.” He looked at the shelves. “Sometimes, they stab me in the heart.”4 stars