Lovecraft Country (novel)


Lovecraft Country is a 2016 dark fantasy horror novel by Matt Ruff, exploring the conjunction between the horror fiction of H. P. Lovecraft and racism in the United States during the era of Jim Crow laws, as experienced by black science-fiction fan Atticus Turner and his family. It was published by HarperCollins.

Reception

Publishers Weekly commended Ruff for his "impressive grasp of classic horror themes", and noted that the book's "most unsettling" aspect is the constant bigotry experienced by the characters, while Kirkus Reviews considered it a "series of bizarre chimerical adventures" and a "merrily macabre pastiche", comparing it favorably to Ruff's previous works.
At Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow described the characters as "active protagonists lives,... dignity, and... indomitable spirit", and observed that because of their constant experiences with "harassment, violence, expropriation, and the legacy of slavery", they "don't need Elder Gods to experience horror", while at Tor.com, Alex Brown judged that the book "thoroughly and effectively marries race and horror" and called it "a tense thriller, a terrifying nightmare, a heartbreaking tragedy, and a tale of holding onto aspiration and optimism even while being chased through the woods by a hellbeast from another dimension".

Adaptation

In 2017, HBO announced that they were preparing an adaptation of the novel, with Jordan Peele and J. J. Abrams as executive producers and Misha Green as showrunner.