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A review by directorpurry
The Broken Hours: A Novel of H. P. Lovecraft by Jacqueline Baker
3.0
Read for the "Read the States" Challenge for: Rhode Island
Actual rating: 3.5 stars
This book is not what you are expecting to read. Do not come into this with any amount of presupposition or you may be disappointed.
This is not a Lovecraft mythos story; it's a Gothic ghost story.
The good: The writing is amazing. I just loved the way the words fell on the page, the right balance of description and thought to form, if not a scary story, a very atmospheric, thoughtful novel.
The bad: I have no idea what the purpose of Flossie Kush was to this story, but it was not achieved.
Flossie is a young, Jewish actress who sublets an apartment in the same building as HP Lovecraft. But, because she and Lovecraft never interact, there's no discourse on his racial prejudices or antisemitism. Not only is her religion tangental at best to the story, she a.) openly compares something to Christmas and b.) brushes on the thought of Hitler in 1936, the year this story takes place.
While I cannot say for certain what Baker does or does not know, American Jews were highly aware of the ghettoization of European Jews well before 1936, and I cannot see how Flossie would be so general or flippant about it.
The ???: Like I mentioned, there was no interaction between the Jewish character and Lovecraft, but there was also no commentary on Lovecraft's general extreme racism and xenophobia. Which honestly doesn't make any sense - in this day, I genuinely don't understand how you can interact with Lovecraft without commenting on his stance on these issues.
It was honestly kind of bizarre reading and waiting for it to come up - but it never did.
All that being said, while the general stance of the book was a bit innocuous, I really do recommend reading this for the writing alone - I found it quite lovely and captivating.
Just, you know, maybe get it from the library or something like I did.
Actual rating: 3.5 stars
This book is not what you are expecting to read. Do not come into this with any amount of presupposition or you may be disappointed.
This is not a Lovecraft mythos story; it's a Gothic ghost story.
The good: The writing is amazing. I just loved the way the words fell on the page, the right balance of description and thought to form, if not a scary story, a very atmospheric, thoughtful novel.
The bad: I have no idea what the purpose of Flossie Kush was to this story, but it was not achieved.
Flossie is a young, Jewish actress who sublets an apartment in the same building as HP Lovecraft. But, because she and Lovecraft never interact, there's no discourse on his racial prejudices or antisemitism. Not only is her religion tangental at best to the story, she a.) openly compares something to Christmas and b.) brushes on the thought of Hitler in 1936, the year this story takes place.
While I cannot say for certain what Baker does or does not know, American Jews were highly aware of the ghettoization of European Jews well before 1936, and I cannot see how Flossie would be so general or flippant about it.
The ???: Like I mentioned, there was no interaction between the Jewish character and Lovecraft, but there was also no commentary on Lovecraft's general extreme racism and xenophobia. Which honestly doesn't make any sense - in this day, I genuinely don't understand how you can interact with Lovecraft without commenting on his stance on these issues.
It was honestly kind of bizarre reading and waiting for it to come up - but it never did.
All that being said, while the general stance of the book was a bit innocuous, I really do recommend reading this for the writing alone - I found it quite lovely and captivating.
Just, you know, maybe get it from the library or something like I did.