Lovecraft Country

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, 2016

Read in April 2020

This book was a brilliant and mind bending merging of historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy taking place in the shockingly racist Jim Crow America in the 1950's. A very weird book that is eight interconnected stories.

I had heard of The Safe  Negro Travel Guide but this was the first time seeing it incorporated into the plot of a fictional story that revealed the horrible racism that made such a book necessary for black people traveling in America at the time. It was a despicable the way Americans treated fellow citizens and haunts us today. I was surprised that a white man had written this book.

A 10 episode television series on HBO was made from this novel.  I'm about half way through the series right now. It was one thing to read about America as a racist country but another thing to experience it through this television show. Truly horrific and much more so than all the monsters, black magic and creepy cult members. Racist white Americans are the true monsters of this story.