WWWednesday: Lovecraft Country, Book and TV Show
Lovecraft Country, Original Cover
Lovecraft Country.
I watched Season One of HBO’s adaptation of
Lovecraft Country before I read Matt Ruff’s original novel-in-stories. I liked each of them, for different reasons. I will be comparing and contrasting here.
Ruff’s book came out in 2016. It embraces and honors the pulp era of speculative fiction, especially short fiction, especially the weird (the title is a clue). Ruff wanted one important difference from the weird fiction and comic books of the 1950s he wanted Black main characters. Three linked families, the Berrys, the Turners and the Dandridges, encounter a centuries old coven of magical practitioners and weird magic, while navigating the “everyday” horror of a racist society. In the opening passage, Atticus Turner, recently returned from a military stint in Korea, puts Jim Crow country in his rearview (he thinks) only to find it’s everywhere… and it’s even worse