Every time I would go to The Strand, this book would stare out at me from the Recommendations Section. I am a big admirer of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, so the name alone titillated me. So, awhile back, I picked this up, and I finally got to it. Now, coming off that Murakami thing, most anything would seem good. But, I have to confess, the reading year so far has been something of a disappointment, because, while the material has been much more challenging than last year, nothing as yet has blown me away.
I had high hopes for this one, dears. The story takes place in a racially divided America in New England and the South, from 1954 (my birth year!) to 1955. Yes, Lovecraft references, titles, and creatures, permeate, but the story involves a group of Afro Americans seeking the fate of the one of their fathers, who worked for a New England family, named Braiwaithe. This gets us into pre-Civil rights issues, miscegenation, haunted houses, and what were called "Sundown Towns," where only Whites lived! Can you imagine?
If you look at the book jacket, it suggests all this. The creepy house and tentacled thing beneath it, suggest Lovecraft, but the white ghostly figures also suggest Klansmen.
Very clever.
So, what goes wrong? Each chapter is like its own short story, with interconnected characters, where everything does not come together until the Epilogue. Matt Ruff may be some cult hotshot, but I don't like this narrative device; it does not work too often. The only novel of this kind that did, that I can recall, was David Schlicker's "Kissing In Manhattan," which was published in 2001, and that is going back eighteen years.
Maybe if the word "Lovecraft" had not heightened my expectations, my disappointment would not be so keen. It is a fairly respectable work, and maybe readers with lower expectations will appreciate it more than I did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But it was no "Call Of Cthulu," darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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