Review: Lovecraft Country is a cleverly subversive take that (mostly) works

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  Atticus, aka "Tic," walking the old familiar streets. [credit: YouTube/HBO ]

A Black family in 1950s Chicago struggles to reclaim their lost ancestral legacy while warding off monsters and magic spells in HBO's Lovecraft Country, based on the 2016 dark fantasy/horror novel of the same name by Matt Ruff. Like the novel that inspired it, the series' pointed juxtaposition of supernatural Lovecraftian horrors against more mundane, but equally horrifying racial inequalities of that era is especially timely in a year that has seen widespread civil rights protests against the brutal killings of Black men (and women) by police officers. And social relevance aside, it also works as pure entertainment.

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

Set in the Jim Crow era of the 1950s, Ruff's book is structured as a series of short stories, although everything is inter-related. The first quarter of the book focuses on Atticus, a Black Korean War veteran and big H.P. Lovecraft fan, despite the author's notorious racism. When his estranged father disappears after encountering a well-dressed white man driving a silver Cadillac, leaving a cryptic message, Atticus sets out on a road trip from Chicago's South Side to rural Massachusetts. He's accompanied by his Uncle George-publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide-and his childhood friend Letitia (aka Leti).

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