Book: Lovecraft Country By Matt Ruff (2016)

"Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, twenty-two year old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned Atticus’s great grandmother—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours. At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction."

Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country pays homage to many genres here, but mostly to the Dark Fantasy of H.P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury. The historical aspect, the Jim Crow years, adds additional terror to the themes being explored here. To those who might question why (almost) every white character presented here is horribly racist, you have to understand that while our country has moved forward in race relationships, it’s well known that racism was much more rampant and obvious back then. But like all history, only the ones who lived through the era can really confirm what is written here. It is clear, though, that Ruff wanted to make a statement with this book, by not only having the main characters be African Americans, but pointing out the blatant hatred of blacks by the whites, even in the supposedly more tolerant northern city of Chicago (and having grown up there, the City by the Lake remains racially divided). Lovecraft Country will anger those Social Justice Warriors then, but this horrifying specter of racism that haunts this book is brilliantly handled, even when juxtaposed with the fact that Lovecraft the writer, was very racist.

While authors like Stephen King have declared Lovecraft to be the “greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale” in the 20th century along with Joyce Carol Oates saying his influence on writers of all genres that followed is “an incalculable” one cannot also think about his racist past once you learn about it. He may’ve been an underappreciated writer when he was alive, and many readers and lovers of the horror genre today still enjoy his work, but as Lovecraft’s biographer, the novelist Michel Houellebecq, once said “Lovecraft's character is fascinating in part because his values were so entirely opposite to ours. He was fundamentally racist, openly reactionary, he glorified puritanical inhibitions.”

Of course, for many of his supporters, it’s about separating the man from his work, or acknowledging that while he was a racist, the time he lived (the Jim Crow and late/early 20^th Century years) was still very openly hostile to blacks. In the end, one has to choose where their distaste for racism and love of a fairly brilliantly horror writer lies. For some, it may be easy, but for others –as pointed out by Oates- his influence on the genre cannot be ignored.

But here, within this book, the marriage of horror, fantasy, science fiction, and racism, Matt Ruff brings a heady mixture of visceral terror along with doses of the realistic nightmare that racism continues to bring to our world.

Book: Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff

There is a saying one should not judge a book by its cover.

But I have to admit, I was drawn to Matt Ruff’s novel Bad Monkeys by its bright yellow cover and its images of four monkeys looking like some bizarre Rorschach test.

The novel opens with a certain Jane Charlotte, who has been arrested for murder. After telling the police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil it earns her a trip to the jail’s psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy—or playing a different game altogether.

Like all secret organizations, there is nothing to substantiate her claims because, of course, there is no records of such a company, especially one that works outside of any government. She tells Dr. Vale that her division is called The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons or Bad Monkeys for short.

So, you can see the doctor’s dilemma.

Bad Monkeys is a well paced thriller/science fiction-ish novel with a huge dash of wicked humor. The verbal sparring between Jane and Vale is delightful, and the action never falls. It’s slim volume means and easy to read prose means you can read it fast, as Ruff never lets up. You are almost forced to continue to read if only to find out whether Jane is crazy, or really telling the truth.