Title: Lovecraft Country
Author: Matt Ruff
Genre: Horror/Weird
Pages: 400
Rating: 3 of 5

This is one of those books that has a great central concept and a disappointing execution. The highly episodic story stars a number of black people living in the era of segregation, sundown towns, and Jim Crow. The author uses the fear, danger, and paranoia of their daily lives as the backdrop for the entire book, skillfully demonstrating that you don’t need hyper-intelligent tentacle monsters to evoke a feeling of dread. Man’s inhumanity to man (including H. P. Lovecraft’s own virulent racism) are bad enough to leave a whole ethnic group living in their own “Lovecraft country.”

My disappointment with the book stems from the supernatural elements that drive the story…they just aren’t very Lovecraftian (especially not after the first chapter). Yes, there is a weird cult from the back hills of New England that seeks supernatural knowledge. However, most of their shenanigans resemble pulp sci-fi (a major thread of the book is the difficulty of being a black sci-fi fan in the 1950’s), polite little Victorian ghost stories, or Scooby Doo episodes rather than the cosmic horror of H. P. Lovecraft.

The author is certainly skilled and has a great sense of humor, but didn’t really deliver on the Lovecraft that is so prominent in the title. The Ballad of Black Tom that I read a couple weeks ago (and reviewed here) isn’t quite as clever in its treatment of racism, but does a much better job of incorporating the right kind of supernatural elements.