Some Books I Loved

 **A masterpiece of supernatural horror.  You're not going to totally understand what's happening, but you're going to know that whatever it is, it's viscerally uncomfortable in the best way** (note, I read the original publisher's translation by Megan McDowell, released 2023.  I think that's the only translation so far) Ok, elephant in the room:  This is a tome .  600+ pages, and more importantly than that it's one of those books where you're deliberately kept in the dark for much of it.  Oh and it's basically five different novellas combined with each other, with more than four different viewpoint characters and five different time periods (plus a few short story length bits from random viewpoint characters that fit into the gaps).  Even by the end of it, there are still so many unanswered questions.  So if you're looking for a linear, single-viewpoint, clear narrative . . . uh, this is not any of those things.  And if that's not your jam, ...

 **A retelling of one of Lovecraft's stories, honoring Lovecraft while also showing how much better he could have been** This post is going to be about the fantastic novella "The Ballad of Black Tom" by Victor LaValle, but I actually want to start out with a passage taken from Matt Ruff's also excellent novel, "Lovecraft Country".  Specifically, this is actually from the Author's Afterword, where Ruff addresses H. P. Lovecraft's complicated legacy: The story that best sums up Lovecraft for me is “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” It’s about a New England coastal town whose inhabitants have made an unholy alliance with aliens who live in the sea. A tourist comes to Innsmouth for the day, sees too much, and ends up running for his life.  All of Lovecraft’s worst traits are on display in the story: Besides the standard racist worldview, “Shadow” offers a thinly veiled allegory about the evils of miscegenation (the aliens are mating with the townspeople). But ...