Lovecraft Country (novel)

*This article is about the 2016 novel that inspired the TV series of the same name. You may be looking for the in-universe novel written by George Freeman.*

***Lovecraft Country*** is a 400 page dark fantasy horror novel that was published in 2016 by HarperCollins. Written by Matt Ruff, *Lovecraft Country* explores the horror fiction of H. P. Lovecraft and racism in the United States during the Jim Crow era. The novel consists of eight interconnected stories and follows a black science-fiction fan, Atticus Turner, and his tumultuous journey.

## Synopsis

*Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-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 one of Atticus’s ancestors—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.*

*A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.*

## Characters

* Atticus Turner
* Montrose Turner
* George Berry
* Hippolyta Berry
* Letitia Dandridge
* Ruby Dandridge
* Samuel Braithwhite
* Caleb Braithwhite

## Trivia

* Matt Ruff initially conceived the story to be a potential TV series in 2007, pitching it as "The X-Files, if Mulder and Scully were black travel writers living in the Jim Crow era." When the idea wasn't fully realized, Ruff decided to rework the concept as a novel. He came up with the idea of structuring it as an episodic novel, which he described as "basically a TV season in literary form, that you would binge-read instead of binge-watching, and whose individual episodes would gradually be revealed to all be pieces of the same arc story." In doing so, Ruff hoped that the novel would also serve as a proof of concept for a possible TV series.

## Adaptation

On August 16, 2020, HBO released a live-action adaptation by Misha Green, executive produced by Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams. There have been several adjustment when adapting the novel to television, starting with some of the characters' names, for instance Horace Berry to Diana Freeman and Atticus Turner to Atticus Freeman. A more notable change is the gender-flipping of Caleb Braithwhite to Christina Braithwhite. In the series, Christina is the unloved daughter of Samuel Braithwhite and betrays him because of this. Additionally, Ji-Ah is an original character created specifically for the series. This makes up only a few of the changes made throughout the series.

## References

1. ↑ HarperCollins
2. ↑ Goodreads Q&A with Matt Ruff