I suspect many readers may currently yearn for an escape to a land of magic and fictional monsters. Try “Lovecraft Country,” a novel by Matt Ruff.
“Lovecraft Country” is set during the Jim Crow era, and while its main characters endure racism that makes one long for the sort of monster that relieves one of one’s sanity with a single glance, they also (spoiler alert) get to experience triumphs. I lightly spoil because I want you to know this is a book with big-league heart, one that might pleasantly distract you from something that is currently troubling you. Previous recommendation Charlie Jane Anders says:
“It’s a heroic story that will have you pumping your fist. But it’s also an incredibly powerful portrayal of American racism—in which the entrenched oppression piles on, page after page, and meanwhile the secrets of a hidden world of monsters and power only add to the sense of—yes—eldridtch dread.”
It is a ripping yarn. It’s often infuriating, yes, but the novel is about the cleverness of its main characters and the way these smart and good-hearted people thrive despite the world that surrounds them rather than about the world that surrounds them.
It uses a structure I’m partial to: linked novellas. Each novella has a different character from the same extended family as its lead, and each has a different fancy sci-fi/horror focus, but they all exist in the shadow of racism. In one, a family must evade both the criminal and racist cops of a “sundown town” and save a relation from the nefarious, blood-magic- heavy intentions of a cult.
In another, an entrepreneur buys a haunted house because it’s cheap. The ghost is scary, but then she plays chess with it.
An aspiring astronomer steps through a portal into another world, where she has a disconcerting chat with a lady stranded there and evades a blob monster.
A young aspiring comic book author is cursed by a mean magician and menaced by an enchanted (in the bad way) doll.
A woman uses magic to change the color of her skin so she may more effectively spy on mean magicians.
And everyone gets together for an action-packed romp of a conclusion that will indeed have you pumping your fists, or at least smiling wistfully at the good people can do even in a world that often isn’t so great.
