REVIEW: Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff

• Year first released:  2016
• ASIN of the edition I read: B00UG61LNS (read on Kindle), paperback
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Harper
• My rating (out of 5):  2.5 

I wonder if I missed something while reading Lovecraft Country. Reading it, I perceived it as an okay drama about a black family in Jim Crow-era racism, with plenty of helpings of the occult.

After I read it, though, I discovered that it was a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Horror, and that it’s considered a “dark fantasy horror.”

After discovering these things, I couldn’t help but think, Wait…this was supposed to be a horror?

Sure, the book was fine. It didn’t complete my life to have read it, but it wasn’t a waste of time. And yes, there were a small handful of eerie, supernatural elements to it. Dark fantasy is fine, I guess. But…horror? I didn’t think Lovecraft Country was even trying to scare me.

The title, too, is a bit of a misnomer. There are a few connections in the book to H.P. Lovecraft, and those were fun. There were only a few of them, though, and – with one particular exception – they were more like Easter Eggs than actual plot points. At the very least, certainly they weren’t strong enough of a tie to the works of H.P. to really name the book after him.

While we’re at it, there’s one more thing that’s worth saying about the book: the book is called a novel. And it almost is. There’s a description on the back to tell you what you’re getting into. What the outside of the book forgets to tell you, though, is that, more than a novel, per se, Lovecraft Country is more of a series of connected, chronological short stories featuring the same cast of characters. Further, it doesn’t mention that the description from the back of the book only describes the first (and best) story within.

Perhaps all of this is neither here nor there when it comes to deciding how good of a book it is, of course, but it’s still an interesting point: yes, the book itself – the plot, the characters, the writing – are fine, but everything about the book seems like a series of errors in judgement. Wrong genre label, misleading title, inaccurately described format...It’s all so fallacious, in fact, that I can’t help but wonder if it was actually intentional. A peculiar marketing strategy? – maybe. Either way, it's all rather misleading.

On to the book itself, though:

Lovecraft Country is a mysterious set of stories, drawing you in to its well-imagined characters: their personalities, their struggles, their secrets. The cast of characters, in fact, was probably the best part about the book as a whole. Also, Lovecraft Country showed a different view of racial issues and tensions than most fiction I happen to read, which was, for me personally, a good change of pace. And I appreciated how each of the individual story pieces tied together in a cohesive way (in the final story, The Mark of Cain). The final story wasn't nearly as climactic as it should have been - at least, compared to the climaxes of a couple of the other stories - but at least it brought everything together in an agreeable way.

None of these elements ultimately make this an unmissable book, though. Lovecraft Country fit neatly into a hole in my reading schedule, and it was a fine filler. I almost imagine it like a mid-album song: it was never meant for radio play; it’s not getting a music video. It’s just a passable song to make the album a little longer.

If you’re in between books, looking for some padding, or wanting to read a horror that isn’t a horror (hey, I know some people who like those, weird though it may sound), then sure, Lovecraft Country is fine. Don’t stick it too high on your To-Read list, though.