Lovecraft Country Paperback – July 1, 2019

What an incredible concept that Lovecraft Country pulls off showing the horrors that an African American Family deal with as they deal with the Jim Crow South in 1945 and an added layer of supernatural elements. This novel will make you think just how hard it was to be a person of color at time. This novel does tie into the movie The Green Book as it was the book The Negro Motorist Green Book was inspiration for the Safe Negro Travel Guide in the book. This novel blends Science Fiction and Horror most notably H. P. Lovecraft, but it twist the tales to fit the black audience. H. P. Lovecraft told great tales but they have tend to be racist and reactionary of the times, so it was cool to see his flipped.The Plot: This book is told as short stories that are all connected involving two black families (the Turner's and Dandridge) and friends, as deal with magic, power, racism, and freedom. The main story is Atticus is found to have an ancestry of Braithwhite blood who are a powerful elitist cult of warlocks, with ties to the Klan. They want to perform a spell that requires a sacrifice of a Braithwhite, and they think Atticus is perfect for this. The kidnap his father and torment his friends and family. There's story that involve space travel, potions that can turn people white, possessed African voodoo dolls, and Haunted houses.What I Liked: This book is heavy in racism, but it is balanced in humor, how the Turners get out of a racist town, and a great moment when the reparations are paid back. The cover really captures the book having the Klan robes also double as tentacles. The Ruby story where she drinks a potion to turn white, and gets back at a white woman who accused her of stealing. The story of the Haunted house that's full of a racist ghost, but come together when the home is threatened by other racist. The characters are all written pretty memorably it is a little hard keeping track of who is related to who, but I eventually caught on.What I Disliked: It took a little to long for the short stories to all start connecting, I honestly thought for the longest time they were not going to connect, so I ended up breaking up this book between other books, which I wouldn't recommend doing, because at the half way point everything starts connecting and I was like crap let me go back and reread to make sure I get everything and their connections. I would've liked for the ending to be a little bit more epic, it good but it had a really great potential to be extra special. It took me about 40 pages to get in to this one.Recommendations: This book is my first 5 star of the new year, I will say it barely made it when I feel out a review I fill out the stars first, but going through all the things I liked and the difficult tone of this book that it did a really great job to pull off I gave it a rare 5 out of 5 stars. I think this is a great on to check out if you like historical fiction, supernatural, and science fiction, this is a great blend of all those mixed in with a dash of horror. I will say as horror element go the racism and tension of possible death by racist is scarier than any creature or horror in this book. Trigger Warning if racist language is a trigger for you, just be warned there's scenes of it used and brutality that comes with it but a lot of little pay off through out. happy reading, every one, would love to hear others opinions on this book since it was like a best of both worlds mix of horror science fiction and history.

Is it possible to separate the person from their art? Does knowing that the person whose work you enjoy, even admire, is a horrible person change your view of that work? I still have books signed by authors I don’t agree with like Orson Scott Card, but in storage. I still have the Mists of Avalon by child molester and abuser, Marion Zimmer Bradley on my shelf. The creator of the Rurouni Kenshin manga and anime, Nobuhiro Watsuki, was recently convicted of possession of child pornography. I can’t look at these works again without thinking of the wrongs committed by their creators.I never got into H.P. Lovecraft. I’ve tried to but just never could finish the supposed classic “At the Mountains of Madness.” But Lovecraft was such an integral figure in imaginative fiction that little did I know I was reading works that were definitely influenced by him. From Stephen King and Brian Lumley to the films of John Carpenter, I’ve grown up with Lovecraft lore. Little did I know that this literary giant of imagination, this icon of genre fiction was a racist. I’m not talking about the casual racism of “he was a person of the times” that so many other artists were back then. He was an outright white supremacist.Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country is not only a book inspired by Lovecraft but one about the racial attitude that Lovecraft shared with so much of America. Through its ensemble cast of African-American characters they will navigate through secret societies, sorcery, other worlds, ghosts, time travel, and Jim Crow America.The book takes its time to get to any incidents of supernatural horrors that are promised. Instead of a straightforward novel we get stories of novella or novelette length that are interconnected with each other culminating in a confrontational conclusion. In the first and titular segment, Atticus, his uncle George (publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide, a fictional counterpart to the real world Negro Motorist Green Book) and childhood friend Letitia encounter horrors of America’s racism. From a simple stop at a gas station to just sitting at what is thought to be a safe diner, the experience of being Black in 1954 America can range from demeaning to life threatening. They are searching for Atticus’ missing and estranged father who is in Ardham, Massachusetts. Atticus originally misreads his father’s handwriting as Arkham, hence the origin of the title Lovecraft Country....What Matt Ruff accomplishes here can’t be called a delightful read. In fact much of it is incredibly uncomfortable. Not because of any eldritch horror, but from the historical context of America’s great sin of racism. There is a segment where Montrose Turner, Atticus’ father recounts his boyhood memories of the real life Tulsa Riot of 1921. The memory, as recounted, and as written by Ruff, stabs you in the heart....Yet, in spite of the real world horrors, there is a strength in the characters that not only allows them to endure but to inspire. There is Hippolyta, George’s wife, who dreamed of being the first Black female astronomer ever since she was a child and continues her love of the stars. She will feature in her own adventure while doing research for the Safe Negro Travel Guide. Her twelve-year-old son, Horace, wants to become a comic book publisher. Letitia Dandridge purposely becomes the first homeowner in a White neighborhood, so that it may open the doors for more Black home ownership in the area. Each character, in their own way, wants to carve a place for themselves in a system that is designed to keep them down....Some readers may not like the way the book is divided into novellas that are interconnected. Personally I really appreciated it and perhaps he only weak segment would have to be the Horace centered story. But overall, Matt Ruff not only brings to life the hard world of the characters but he manages to infuse them with an authenticity as well. These aren’t great heroes out to save or change the world. They are Black Americans making it through a shameful period of America’s past that is not really all that distant and not one that we have distanced ourselves away from enough yet.Highly Recommended

Exceeding well written. I had to look up the author to see if he was Afro-American, he's not! He tells the stories from the perspectives of negroes in the 1950's USA. Think of the Green Book. Very believable human characters and their situations involving Lovecraftian encounters. Looking very much forward to Book 2!

Assisti à série, que foi muito boa. Comprei o livro em inglês para treinar minha leitura e para ver se a série foi fiel à obra.

Si estás esperando una aventura a fin al universo de Chtulhu o una historia de terror cósmico, este libro no lo es. Es una historia sobre la experiencia de vida afroamericana y el racismo, aventuras y sociedades secretas. Fácil lectura rápida y, sobretodo, entretenida.

A well-written and fast paced novel,with original characters and a subtext and innuendos that bring back to some Lovecraftian atmospheres.The ending definitely begs for a follow-up.

After watching Lovecraft country and learning it was based off a book I just had to read it! Definitely worth a read as the tv show does divert from the story so it was a whole new experience reading this. I almost forgot this was a science fiction horror as the real horror comes from the jim crow era. Such a great story and great characters.. just wish it was longer