With seven wildly creative, incisive books under his belt, it was only surprising that Matt Ruff didn’t get an HBO show sooner. But Lovecraft Country has been worth the wait, especially since it gave me the perfect excuse to re-read the book in anticipation. If you haven’t experienced either yet, there’s still time to experience the book and the show–three more episodes remain, and you can cope with the weekly cliffhangers by reading the book, which tells an overarching narrative of race and horror in a series of interrelated short stories. Matt graciously took the time to answer a few questions for us here at The Nerd Daily about Lovecraft Country the book, Lovecraft Country the show, and even a few new exciting projects!
What was it like turning your book into a show?
Well, I’m not the person who turned it into a show—it was the showrunner, Misha Green, who did that. I gave Misha my book, my notes, and my blessing, and then I got out of her way, which has proven to be an incredibly smart decision on my part. I’m thrilled with the series. It’s very faithful to the spirit of the novel, while not being afraid to change things up and take the story in surprising new directions. I couldn’t have asked for a better adaptation.
Which character was your favorite to write?
It’s a toss-up between Hippolyta and Ruby, with Letitia running a close third. Hippolyta’s adventure was the most fun for me to write, while Ruby faced the most interesting moral dilemma. And Letitia’s just a force of nature: the kind of character who’s never afraid to say what’s on her mind, and who never stops fighting for what she thinks she deserves.
Which story gave you the most trouble, and why?
Ruby’s chapter kept trying to turn into a novel in its own right. “Jekyll in Hyde Park” is really Caleb Braithwhite’s chapter, too—it’s where you learn what his master plan is—so it was always going to be one of the longest chapters in the book. But my first draft included a lot of backstory about Ruby’s relationship with her mother that just strayed too far from the main narrative. In editing I ended up cutting most of that and replacing it with the scene in the nightclub where Ruby tells Braithwhite about her mother and he opens up, a little, about his father. You still get the necessary information, but it’s shorter, it’s more on point, and it creates this neat bonding moment between the two of them that wasn’t there in the original version.
I love how insidious Caleb is as a villain. How did you go about developing him?
People often confuse civility with moral goodness, and I’m fascinated by villains who exploit this tendency. In contrast to obvious brutes like Lancaster and Sheriff Hunt, Braithwhite is unfailingly polite, and even when he puts you through hell, he tries to be as nice as possible about it: “Yes, it’s true, I forced you to go into a booby-trapped treasure room to get that book I wanted, but you made it back alive—I knew you would!—and here’s a pile of money for your troubles. See you next time!” The key to Braithwhite’s psyche is that he’s incapable of seeing himself as a bad guy. He regards his goals as reasonable and his means, however ruthless, as justified. As he says to Ruby, he’s a man who knows what he wants, and how to get it—and what could possibly be wrong with that?
Braithwhite’s belief in himself is so strong that if you’re not careful, it’ll snare you, too. My protagonists have too much experience with smooth-talking white people to be taken in by it, but the same can’t be said for all of my readers. Even though the character is designed to seduce you in this way, I’m always surprised when people ask me whether he’s really that bad. The answer is a big YES, but the fact that it’s even a question shows just how powerful a tool of manipulation civility can be.
Lovecraft’s protagonists are nearly all isolated, alone, and unable to fully convey the magnitude of their encounters. Did you consciously decide to create characters who were in community with one another? What do you make of that contrast?
The initial inspiration for Lovecraft Country wasn’t Lovecraft at all, but rather The X-Files. I wanted to tell a story about this recurring cast of characters having a series of paranormal adventures. So the idea of community—of family—was there from the first. Part of the concept was that each of my protagonists would get a chance to star in their own weird tale, and some of those individual episodes do have that Lovecraftian sense of isolation—think of Hippolyta, driving out to the Winthrop Observatory alone in the middle of the night. But the characters are stronger when they work together, and they need to do that, to have a chance against Caleb Braithwhite and the Order.
What minor spell—like the unnoticeable car—would you want to want to apply to your life?
I don’t know if this counts as minor, but I always thought it would be nice to have a magical instinct for danger, like a red aura that would appear around doorways and paths that were best avoided. Caleb Braithwhite’s telekinetic ability would also be really useful, even if you scaled it back so you could only move small objects.
You’ve demonstrated a great way of reconciling creations to their creator, namely by using Lovecraft’s good ideas against his bad ideas. Are there other works you’d like to see given this treatment?
This isn’t something I’m seriously considering, but a reader over on Goodreads asked me how I’d rewrite A Princess of Mars, which is an interesting question. I’m torn between a version of the story that paints a more realistic portrait of what it would mean for John Carter to be a true believer in the Confederate cause, and a version that flips the confrontation in the opening chapter. Instead of John Carter getting pursued by a band of angry Apaches, you could have this Apache brave who’s minding his own business when he’s attacked by white prospectors, chased into a cave, and teleported to Mars.
Can you tell us anything about your next project?
Earlier this year I published a new novel, 88 Names. It’s about a guy named John Chu who works as a paid guide to online role-playing games and becomes convinced that his latest client is North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The first two-thirds of the book are set entirely in virtual reality, so it’s this cat-and-mouse game in which all of the characters are shapeshifters.
I haven’t officially decided what I’m working on next, but I’m thinking about returning to the world of Lovecraft Country. Though I’m generally not a sequel guy, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve got more to say with these characters. Stay tuned.
