Most of Lovecraft’s stories take place in fictional towns and cities of a New England buried in dark vales or beaten by the waves. A prolific writer, Lovecraft during his life corresponded with a wide circle of authors young and old, many of whom would end up contributing their own writing to expand what is known as the Cthulhu Mythos, the ensemble of stories and legends that make up Lovecraft’s fictional world. In the eight decades since his death, in 1937, Lovecraft’s fictional world has been more or less obliquely celebrated in literature and games (whether video games, card games, or board games), as well as in numerous comics, songs, and films. Lovecraft’s influence on the horror genre is difficult to overstate. But writers and filmmakers are not exempt, and Lovecraft Country has a few things to account for. It is a tenet of the horror genre to challenge us to ponder how and why we can find enjoyment in rehearsals of abjection, cruelty, violence, and fear.

How do Black readers deal with the violence of these beliefs, circulating unimpeded as they do in Lovecraft’s prose? And, it must be asked, how do Black viewers deal with this same violence in the glossy new HBO adventure Lovecraft Country?Įven as it leverages African American history, sarcasm, and humor against racist bile, much of the show appears dedicated to finding a formula in which genre clichés-however racist-just have to be painted over, so as to be enjoyed without guilt. What lies beyond accepted boundaries-concrete or metaphorical borders, color lines, bloodlines-is chaos. The frontier, that old American myth, is, in Lovecraft, the source of all nightmares. And while Faulkner might have recognized slavery as America’s original sin, for Lovecraft the sin was interracial contact and other perceived assaults on white racial purity. He was also a rabid, obsessive, paranoiac racist. Lovecraft, the recluse of Providence, was arguably the godfather of modern cosmic horror. Still, racism is not really that easy to ignore, especially when it plays an essential role in an author’s style. There’s just too much racism in literature to let it ruin all art. Maybe magnanimity comes more easily to monuments of literature, or maybe she was simply describing one of many instances when she felt compelled to bypass racism and its tiresome omnipresence to focus on whatever gem she might find in the sewage. Morrison, of course, was speaking in hindsight then, her status as a literary giant already etched in stone. So, when they said these things that were profoundly racist, I forgave them.” 1 One ever feels the two-ness, overcome by art, and, yet, at enough of a remove to be in a position to judge and forgive. Toni Morrison described encountering racist stereotypes in the writings of Hemingway, Cather, or Faulkner: “I skipped that part. It is a peculiar sensation, reading while Black-more precisely, reading white authors while Black.

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