Craig Laurance Gidney's Blog, page 32
March 13, 2017
Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff: The horrors of James Corvid(nee Jim Crow).
Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
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 ruthlessly determined to uphold his (white) (male) 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.
Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: lovecraft country, matt ruff
March 4, 2017
New fiction in forthcoming anthology!
My story “Mirror Bias” will be appearing in Looming Low, an anthlogy published by Dim Shores Publications. I share the Table of Contents with a stellar cast of weird fiction luminaries. Looming Low will be available in August 2017.
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Filed under: Fiction
February 18, 2017
The Outer Dark Symposium on the Greater Weird–March 25 & Indiegogo
I will be participating in The Outer Dark Symposium on the Greater Weird on March 25 in Atlanta/Decatur, along with a bunch of other authors, editors, artists and academics.
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The Outer Dark is a podcast run by Scott Nicolay that focuses on Weird Fiction. Guests of the podcast have included Chesya Burke, Laird Barron, Nisi Shawl, and Gemma Files, among other weird creators.
The first Symposium is raising funds via an Indiegogo campaign. There are many perks for contributors–including one by yours truly.
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Filed under: Events Tagged: indiegogo, symposium on the greater weird, the outer dark
February 11, 2017
February 5, 2017
EVENT: OutwriteDC Panel/East City Books/February 10,2017/6-8 PM
I will be on a panel/reading hosted by OutwriteDC at East City Books.
ADDRESS: 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE #100 Washington, DC 20003
TIME: 6-8PM
PANELISTS: Everett Maroon, Risa Denenberg, David Eye
MODERATOR: Joe Okonkwo
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Hope to see you there!
Filed under: Events Tagged: David Eye, East City Books, everett maroon, Joe Okonkwo, outwritedc, Risa Denenberg
January 25, 2017
On “Moonlight”: in praise of blue black boys
I finally saw the movie “Moonlight” over the holidays. I am pleased that it was nominated for 8 Academy Awards. Adapted from the play “In Moonlight, Black Boys Look Blue,” the film is, among other things, a coming-out story of a young black man, set against the backdrop of the 1980s war on drugs. It’s a sparse film, full of small gestures and precise performances. The main character is seamlessly played by three actors, from prepubescence to young adulthood.
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The resonance between my 2013 YA novel BEREFT and the film is very strong. Like the character Chiron in Moonlight, my 13-year old character Rafe faces bullying and lives with his mentally unstable mother in an inner city neighborhood. (BEREFT differs in that it focuses on Rafe’s school life when he gets a scholarship to a Catholic prep school).
The importance of the movie, which centers on black queer love, cannot be overstated.
Our stories are finally getting the recognition they deserve.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: black, moonlight, movies, queer
January 20, 2017
3 stories by Craig Laurance Gidney on Great Jones Street!
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The fiction app Great Jones Street has reprinted three of my stories.
Magpie Sisters – a magical realist fairytale
Circus Boy Without A Safety Net – a coming out fable about a queer black boy and his love of Lena Horne
Strange Alphabets – a historical fantasy about the French poet Arthur Rimbaud
Filed under: Fiction, Publishing Tagged: great jones street, reprints
January 3, 2017
Check out my interview with Philip Dean Walker on Lambda Literary Foundation
Happy New Year!
My interview with fellow DC author and future Lethe Press author Philip Dean Walker is now up at Lambda Literary.
Check it out here!
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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Interviews, lambda literary, philip dean walker
December 1, 2016
Celebrity Ghosts, 80s style: At Danceteria & Other Stories by Philip Dean Walker
At Danceteria and Other Stories by Philip Dean Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The specter of AIDS haunts this star-studded, themed collection which is set in the early 80s, just at the beginning of the AIDS crisis. The cast includes Keith Haring, Sylvester, the Reagans, Jackie O, and Little Edie Beale. The settings veer from New York Bathhouses to the Castro to Fire Island to the White House. The brief book exudes a unique mixture of camp and nostalagia, shot through with a prophetic melancholy.
Forthcoming Interview with the author….
Filed under: Book Tagged: gay fiction, philip dean walker, short fiction
November 25, 2016
NEW FICTION: Pestilence (Case Studies in Paranoid-Empathetic-Selective-Telepathy”
The rise and subsequent normalization of White Supremacy in this election season is the reason I wrote “Pestilence (Case Studies in Paranoid-Empathetic-Selective-Telepathy,” It’s a piece of flash fiction that deals with the new forms that racism has taken on in the current zeitgeist.
Filed under: Uncategorized
