Lovecraft Country

A Novel

By: Matt Ruff

Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Now an HBO® series from J.J. Abrams (executive producer of Westworld), Misha Green (creator of Underground), and Jordan Peele (director of Get Out and Us), this brilliant and imaginative novel by critically acclaimed author Matt Ruff makes visceral the terrors of Jim Crow America, melding historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror.

Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.

A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.

©2021 Matt Ruff (P)2020 HarperAudio

Disappointingly not what I expected...

I came into this audiobook not really knowing much about it. I read the synopsis and thought is sounded pretty cool, and plus, some people had been recommending the tv series. Given the title, and even the cover, I thought it was going to be more "horror" with cool Lovecraft monsters and such. I thought it would be an engrossing tale into madness or something. More supernatural and "action."

This book is none of those things.

First off, I'm not a fan of anthologies. This book is an anthology of five or six different character pieces. I just don't like short little bites of bigger things. I like a long, in depth, arching story with character development. This book started off with an interesting setup, I was excited to see where that would go and develop with what I thought was the main character gaining arcane powers. Nope. That went no where. It then spun off into various characters getting little bite size stories that never really amounted to anything.

It's like they would each start some potentially entertaining story that started to wander off into fantasy, but then stopped. They came back to the boring real world. The characters never grew or developed. They never did anything interesting with this supernatural world that just sat on the edge of the book. It was quite disappointing.

Truly Wonderful

An absolute banger. My only complaint is the narrator's inflection is, from time to time, a little strange. Otherwise, it's an absolute must-listen.

Save your disappointment and watch the HBO series

First, the narrator.
I am forced to admit that many of the voices sound very similar, and there is almost no emotional inflection present, almost as though the narrator is just reading off the page with no effort to make it a performance. With that in mind, however, his voice does work for the subject matter.

Now, a slight disclaimer.
I saw the TV series before listening to the audiobook, so my reactions may have been colored somewhat by that.

Now, I did go into it with certain expectations. I already knew it was (more or less) a collection of interconnected short stories, so there are challenges to its contiguousness.

That being said, there is an interesting premise here. I like the idea of a black-led cast fighting racism on the backdrop of a Supernatural underworld in the 50s.

Based on the title, of course, I was expecting a LOT more Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos influence, but the reality is there is almost none. There are references, based almost entirely on major characters who are fans of Lovecraft, but that's really a far as the HPL references go.

The Sorcery, as it were, bears no resemblance to anything in HPL's work. There are no Lovecraftian creatures or gods, no Supernatural horror (even calling it dark fantasy is a bit of a stretch), and the extremely slight references to insanity are limited to one character and not presented in any way that remotely resembles anything believable.

Now, I'm not a Lovecraft purist who thinks that everything with any claim to being Lovecraftian or Mythos needs to be a carbon copy of what HPL did, but I do think that if you're going to put "Lovecraft" in the title of a book, that book should at least be inspired by something of that man's work.

This book is not. Not in any discernible way, at least.

However, moving past the unfortunate title, there are some fun things done here. I myself would have been happier with a story focusing a tad more of the Supernatural and a pinch less on the real-world racism, but I do understand that was the point of the book.

I don't want to put too bold a point on this, but I feel it should be mentioned that while I do find it odd that a white guy who grew up in the 70s wrote a book with this premise, I do find the portrayal of the cast and period more realistic and fleshed out than I would have expected.

Unfortunately, because of the episodic nature of this book (which I've gathered, based on information from his Wikipedia page, is an ongoing problem for this author) combined with its skipping around between several main characters, none of them are really as fleshed out as I would have liked, so I really didn't have the time to fully connect with any of them.

They each do have their own distinct drives and goals, the just don't ever rise far enough off the page (or speaker, as it were) to fully feel like real people.

And my final issue lies in the plot. It honestly just doesn't feel that well developed. The story is extremely straightforward with very few twists and no surprises.

In closing, this was a decent attempt at an interesting premise, but unless you're really set on reading the original source material I would strongly recommend ditching the book and just watching the HBO series. It's a much more satisfying and cohesive experience.

love it

love it :)

it was an amazing book overall. 10/10. Would recommend to anyone looking for a good book.

Lovecraft monsters, mythology? NOPE!

Story gets redundant. Lot of racist stuff happens and NO MONSTERS. The name gives you the sense that this would have a strong connection to Lovecraft stories and more importantly the LOVECRAFT monsters, mythology, etc... NOPE! There's more action in the first episode of the tv show than in the whole book. No Lovecraft monsters. I repeat. No monsters. Hard PASS.

The story is really about a group of "colored people" (author's words) vs a bunch of warlocks who are less magical and more dumb, racist, idiots than anything else. There's a couple of easter eggs in there, I'm guessing to sell that there REALLY, REALLY, REALLY is a connection to LC... but there really isn't. After the first act, the book really becomes 2-3 short stories and then an ending.

I'd have returned the book but for some reason, Audible said I couldn't.

Racism More Pernicious than Lovecraftian Horror

In Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country (2016) the eight stories make a composite novel about the African American Turner and Berry families and their friends as they encounter the malign Adamite Order of the Ancient Dawn, an organization of white natural philosophers (call them wizards or alchemists at your peril) scattered across the USA in big cities like Chicago and tiny towns like Ardham (not Arkham!). The Turners et al have to deal especially with the descendants of the Order’s 18th-century founder, Titus Braithwhite, namely the amoral mad occult scientist Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb (pretty “likeable for a white guy” but may be the devil incarnate). Each story features a different point of view protagonist and a different supernatural challenge. Initially bemused by the supernatural, the characters quickly accept it and try to deal with it. After all, they have grown up in Jim Crow America, always having to be very careful around white people, whose natural dangers have prepared them for the supernatural ones.

Here is an annotated list of the stories:

The novella “Lovecraft Country” reveals to Atticus Turner, a 22-year-old African American Korean war vet, the existence in 1954 Jim Crow America of weird things like those he’s read of in H. P. Lovecraft stories: a mysterious silver car, an unseen powerful noisy thing in the woods, a community of serfs living around a manor house, an occult cult of natural philosophers, and a portentous ritual. But maybe the scariest and most dangerous things are everyday white people like racist policemen. In addition to Atticus, the story features his wise uncle George Turner (publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide!), his feisty childhood friend Letitia Dandridge, and his spicy father Montrose.
4 stars.

After Letitia buys the very haunted Winthrop House in a white neighborhood in Chicago in “Dreams of the Which House,” she then stubbornly attempts to get the white ghost if not the neighborhood to accept her (You don’t want to play poker? How about chess?). This real estate deal can’t have some connection with Caleb Braithwaite, can it?
4 stars.

“Abdullah’s Book” concerns a notebook of back wages (plus interest) owed a family slave ancestor, Caleb Braithwaite, a scary and comedic Chicago Museum of Natural History heist of an occult Book of Names attempted by some members of the Prince Hall Freemasons (including George, Montrose, Atticus, and a small and eager dentist), and a surprising and almost satisfying conclusion.
4 stars

In “Hippolyta Disturbs the Universe,” Hippolyta, “a giantess and a negress” and a scout for husband George’s The Safe Negro Travel Guide, as well as an amateur astronomer, visits Warlock Hill in Wisconsin to check out the observatory of the somewhat deceased Order of the Ancient Dawn member Hiram Winthrop and finds herself looking through a telescope at another world and then having to decide whether or not to jump through a “doorway” into it. Some strange, sublime sf: “She steadied herself and turned around, to find Ida staring at her from several feet and thrillions of miles away.”
4 stars

In “Jekyll in Hyde Park,” Letitia’s sister Ruby (an accepting and deferring doormat) comes in for some serious temptation by learning firsthand how much easier her life would be white. Is the mysterious and creepily clean-cut Caleb Braithwhite “the devil”? Or just “a man who knows what he wants and how to get it?” The story is my least favorite, partly because I can’t believe pious Ruby would do what she does in it.
3 stars

“The Narrow House” is devastating. Caleb B makes another offer that can’t be refused, sending Montrose and Atticus to find Hiram Winthrop’s son Henry Winthrop, who ran away to be with a black maid, with whom he had a son of his own, so they can retrieve some potent books from the guy. This story highlights “the horror, the most awful thing, to have a child the world wants to destroy it to know you’re helpless to help him” in the context of racism and the horrifying Tulsa Massacre.
4 stars

To get intelligence on his mother, in “Horace and the Devil Doll” the Chicago branch of the Order targets Horace, the sweet, creative, imaginative, and asthmatic twelve-year-old son of Hippolyta and George Berry. It features a nasty spittle curse and a creepy pygmy African witchdoctor devil doll. Can Caleb B help? At what cost?
3.5 stars

8. The Mark of Cain
This story depicts the climactic showdown between rival members of the Order of the Ancient Dawn from Chicago and Ardham trying to wipe each other out, with Atticus as the prize, without reckoning on the formidable interference of the Turner and Berry and Dandridge families plus a few of their friends. I found it a bit over the top, unconvincing, and convenient.
3 stars

The audiobook reader Kevin Kennerly does a fine job without over-dramatizing his voice for kids or women or old people or white or black people. He understands the story and reads it with enough enthusiasm and intelligence to enhance it.

I enjoyed the book: it’s scary, funny, moving, and exciting. Ruff writes a straight-forward page turning story with teeth and heart. I like the references to Barsoom, Bradbury, and Lovecraft et al. (“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.”) I got a kick out of Horace’s homemade comics about Orithyia Blue (inspired by his mother). I like the different main characters and their relationships. The descriptions are vivid, the plots tight, and the dialogue often funny, especially via Montrose, like when he nails John Carter for being a Confederate officer or says things like, “You want me to go to Philadelphia and pick up the trail with my special Negro powers?” I like (painfully) all the touches about racism in the US, which was worse in pre-Civil Rights era USA (e.g., in 1921 and the Tulsa massacre, which shaped the Turner and Berry families, and in 1954, when the story takes place, and, for example, black realtors couldn’t join the national realtor association) and which Ruff (as a white guy) has researched and thought and felt and imagined a lot about, and which also tell us a lot about how it’d feel to be a person of color today, because although things are better now, they are definitely not fair or equal either.

By the way, in its depiction of a world in which the supernatural horrors are not worse than the discriminatory dangers the characters of color face in the USA, it resembles Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation books, though Ireland, unlike Ruff, is African American, and she’s writing supernatural alternate history while he writes supernatural historical fiction. And Victor Lavelle's The Ballad of Black Tom is more Lovecraftian than Ruff's novel.

THE BEST!

One of the betterbppks that I've read--on audio book, ebook or paperback. Recommend very highly, but it is disturbing. Not the fantasy bits, but the all too real descriptions of the black experience in the 50's.

I enjoyed it

I like the book better than the show. Well written and well performed. Easy to follow along even though it's kind of a collection of stories.

Different

Alot different than the HBO Series, but still a good book. Creepy and unnerving concerning all the sorcery and demonic themes. Yet, interesting twists with the time travel and Jekyll/Hyde.

Very strong start with a drop off and a plateau.

I'd give it 3.5 stars. The first story was great, and if it had been stretched into a novel on it's own it could have made it to five stars. Unfortunately the rest of the book is decidedly 3 star.