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Lovecraft Country (Lovecraft Country, #1)

Matt Ruff

Start date: April 1, 2019

Finish date: April 30, 2019

Discussion: Books of the Month 2019

Why we're reading this: April 2019
Horror
[close] April 2019
Horror

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Books of the Month 2019

Recursion - November 2019 - Thriller/Suspense
By Katrisa · 3 posts · 11 views

last updated Feb 29, 2020 12:32AM

Cujo - December 2019
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last updated Jan 03, 2020 12:33PM

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What Members Thought

Apr 13, 2019 D Dyer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-reads, historical-fiction, bipoc-authors, bipoc-main-character, owned, horror, first-in-series, science-fiction, works-part-of-series, available-from-nls-bard

This was a fantastic book. Especially for me as a person who has very much enjoyed HP Lovecraft stories but feels some level of conflict about that enjoyment due to his politics which are on avowedly racist. We begin with Atticus Turner, a young, black veteran in 1950s America traveling across country from Florida to Chicago searching for his father Who has gone missing, and just in that opening we get hence not only of the love crafty and horrors the author has in store for us but also of the e This was a fantastic book. Especially for me as a person who has very much enjoyed HP Lovecraft stories but feels some level of conflict about that enjoyment due to his politics which are on avowedly racist. We begin with Atticus Turner, a young, black veteran in 1950s America traveling across country from Florida to Chicago searching for his father Who has gone missing, and just in that opening we get hence not only of the love crafty and horrors the author has in store for us but also of the everyday terrors that come with being black in America. I shuddered every time Atticus or one of his family members in the subsequent stories in this link collection encountered a white authority figure.
In each of the stories rough takes inspiration from a piece of a classic horror fiction, and present some version of the sort of monsters and disturbances characteristic of that fiction but offers a slant deeply colored by the experiences of his protagonists, Black men and women of the 1950s deeply aware of their lack of power and skilled in survival. His version of Jekyll and Hyde features Ruby, a young attractive black woman given the chance to transform herself into a tall, thin, white lady and experience the power inherent in that position, something he does particularly well by not overstating that power, even when she is White Ruby who in this persona calls herself Hillary, is still a woman. In his take on Lovecraft classic dreams in the witch house, a haunted house story, we meet up again with Letitia who we encountered first in this collections title story and who is taking advantage of the countries new housing policies and who encounters both the houses ghostly residence and neighbors furious at the integration of their previously all white neighborhood.
All I can say is that this collection is extremely well written, terrifying on multiple levels with protagonist who though strong and resourceful aren’t superheroes. The writing is stellar, the characters voices clear and distinct and I think that the stylistic choice of writing this as a collection of linked stories was a smart one. It allowed us to focus on not the conflict between our initial protagonist, Atticus and the Psion of the family that used to own his butt on the larger conflicts between communities as told through the experiences of The Turner and Braithwaite families. And each individual story had enough sorcery, monsters and thrills to feel like a better version of the Pults I’ve loved with such conflict. ...more

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Jun 24, 2018 Audrey marked it as to-read

Apr 21, 2019 Layne marked it as to-read · review of another edition

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