There’s a trend that seems to be popping up in Lovecraft inspired literature. For those who may not know, Howard P. Lovecraft was the author of such stories as At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and perhaps most notably The Call of Cthulhu. These stories could be classified as weird fiction or horror, with elements of fantasy and science fiction, and dealt with topics like the vastness of the cosmos, compared to the relative weakness of the human species and the fallibility of our understanding versus with scope of the universe, and the horrors it contains.

What Lovecraft is also remembered for is being a garbage person. Few authors or creators have so freely and vehemently expressed their distrust and anger towards other races and peoples. He hated on African Americans, Jews, Asians, and almost everyone who wasn’t a white Christian.

Thus, if you want to write something inspired by Lovecraft, but show that you don’t condone his views about race and religion, you write Lovecraft inspired stories entirely about race and religion. A nice middle finger in the face of his racism that would make him turn in his grave – he wrote good things, but you deserve it when that’s what you think about people different than you. In this budding sub-genre I’ve already had the pleasure of reading three books; The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Levalle, The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge, and now Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff.

For this blog, my intention was to try and write more essays about the books I read and less review style things, but in this case, I just want to gush, and I think some of the choices are worth talking about. In that way, I would encourage everyone to read this book if they like Lovecraft or want something to read with a mostly POC cast of characters. Read, come back, and we can talk about just how neat this book is.

Stories Within Stories

I found this book in my quest to find a Lovecraft inspired book that dealt with the topics discussed above – with all of the cosmic unknown and monsters and darkness. To that end, this book was not what I expected, but it delivered to me things I didn’t know I needed until they were looking up at me from the page. The book always kept me guessing, always wondering with a new set of circumstances, and I believe it’s unique story-telling style helped it do that.

But before we delve too deep, a brief summation. Atticus is a returning African American veteran to his home in Chicago, where he plans to meet up with his somewhat estranged Father, Montrose. But Montrose is missing after taking an impromptu trip across the country to a manor owned by an organization called The Order of the Ancient Dawn, who want to use Montrose for a ritual that would change the course of human history. It falls to Atticus, his uncle George, and cousin Letitia to save his father and protect the world from whatever darkness the order might unleash.

Great stuff from the premise alone. Not only that, with a cast of POC characters trying to navigate the harsh realities of Jim Crow America in the 1950s, the stakes are always set so high for everything this family gets into.

But the interesting thing is, concerning the premise I’ve just laid out for you (spoilers), that it’s only the first 20% of the book. By that time, Montrose has been rescued and it seems like the book is wrapping up, which surprised me, because there was still all this book left to navigate, and the premise had already been resolved for the most part. Thus, the guessing game began. We’re lead to believe that Atticus will be the main character, but it might be more accurate to say that he’s one of many protagonists in the novel. The book is split into eight sections, including an epilogue. Each of those sections involve the adventures and travels of another one of the characters from the cast, having their own strange encounters with the supernatural or otherworldly. At first, it would appear as though they are separate stories, but all of them are connected in a linear narrative, just told from many different views, that follow what happens when Atticus returns home with Montrose, and the fallout from their meeting with the Order.

It’s a great way to tell a story, but in some ways, it slowed me down and made the book harder to read. But in a good way. Each story is so compelling and so character-driven, that when another part would begin, it would feel almost daunting, because now you have to start with a new character and have to deal with their problems, which would reveal some new kind of threat to them and their family – which would include everything from possessed dolls to portals to other worlds on the other side of the universe. Fascinating stuff, and so well done that each of those sections, if taken out of context, could have been published as a short story and labeled weird fiction, and would have been just as interesting. The conflict was so engaging that it was almost hard to let the last one go to begin a new one, which never failed to also draw me in by the end.

Through these various encounters with the unknown and inexplicable, Ruff can flush out all of the characters in the cast in their own limelight, so that by the end, when all of the elements are being pulled together for the climax, and all of the characters are in play, you have a strong sense for each of them, and an understanding about what lead them to that moment, what knowledge they have about the horrors they’re facing. The characters feel alive and dynamic – living under Jim Crow has made all of these characters practical in the way they face fear and tragedy, making them more relatable. When writing horror, a lot of the anxiety from the audience comes from watching characters make bad choices, even accidentally. “Don’t go down into the dark basement” or “don’t look under the bed” would be situations involving characters making bad decisions under stress. But the characters from Ruff make the best choices they can, and trouble still befalls them, which makes them more empathetic since the audience can see the situation play out and think “Yea, I would have done that too”. It’s a unique way to present horror scenarios, and I really enjoyed it.

The way the characters interact feels real and true to the time and place, and the challenges they face range from the mind-expanding to the heart-breaking to the terrifying – sometimes all three. It was so good I had to keep putting it down and walking away, to clean my palette for the next story with another character.

If you’re looking for something Lovecraft inspired that you can read guilt-free, this is your ticket. Definitely check it out…

and Keep Reading.