Laura Mignott
asked
Matt Ruff:
What made you craft the violent aspects of the characters experience in the book and how do you feel about how it's demonstrated in the HBO series?
Matt Ruff
I should start by saying that I have a high tolerance for violence in fiction. I love a good bloody fight, and will laugh out loud at the sort of over-the-top brutality you often see in genre stories, because I know it’s make-believe. When it comes to historical dramas, I’m a bit more particular – while I think it’s important to tell the truth about what, for example, slaves went through, I don’t enjoy watching helpless people get abused and degraded for the length of an entire movie. I tend to prefer stories that focus on the way people cope with dire circumstances rather than emphasizing their suffering.
Lovecraft Country is, very deliberately, a hybrid work. I try to be realistic about the violence – and the threat of violence – that black people in America have historically had to deal with, but I also use the more fantastic genre violence for cathartic purposes. So the firemen who chase Atticus, George, and Letitia out of town at gunpoint end up magically wrecked at the roadside; racist lawmen who in real life would go unpunished get eaten by a monster; and the white boys who break into the Winthrop House face the wrath of a ghost. This blend of reality and fantasy works for me, though I understand it won't be to everyone’s taste.
The TV show leans even more heavily into this strategy. The bad-guy body count is higher, and the “punishments” tend to be more graphic. In the novel, for instance, the boys who break into the Winthrop House all survive, though they’ll have nightmares forever; the TV show kills them and stashes their corpses in the sub-basement. Again, I’m fine with this, but your mileage may vary.
Lovecraft Country is, very deliberately, a hybrid work. I try to be realistic about the violence – and the threat of violence – that black people in America have historically had to deal with, but I also use the more fantastic genre violence for cathartic purposes. So the firemen who chase Atticus, George, and Letitia out of town at gunpoint end up magically wrecked at the roadside; racist lawmen who in real life would go unpunished get eaten by a monster; and the white boys who break into the Winthrop House face the wrath of a ghost. This blend of reality and fantasy works for me, though I understand it won't be to everyone’s taste.
The TV show leans even more heavily into this strategy. The bad-guy body count is higher, and the “punishments” tend to be more graphic. In the novel, for instance, the boys who break into the Winthrop House all survive, though they’ll have nightmares forever; the TV show kills them and stashes their corpses in the sub-basement. Again, I’m fine with this, but your mileage may vary.
More Answered Questions
Mark Power-Freeman
asked
Matt Ruff:
Hi, Matt! I've long been curious about the Ruby arc. How did you find the courage to take her story in that direction? It very easily could be taken the wrong way, even though I think you did an *excellent* job of laying out her motivations for doing what she did.
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