Steve Rasnic Tem
Lovecraft Museum

THE REVIEW

Honestly, I didn't know the American writer Steve Rasnic Tem (1950) even though, reading his biography, he boasts quite an impressive curriculum: he has won the Bram Stoker Award four times and has a substantial body of work with over 350 stories and 6 novels. In Italy, as far as I could verify, only various stories have been published scattered in science fiction and horror anthologies. Steve Rasnic Tem is highly appreciated by Joe Lansdale, who has given him very flattering reviews. Among his influences, Steve Rasnic Tem cites Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Ramsey Campbell, James Graham Ballard, and surrealist authors, but also his visceral love for visual arts: with such names, one might think of a comparison with Thomas Ligotti, another author who cites a rich background of mainstream readings or, regarding another author strongly influenced by art, one cannot fail to mention Robert Aickman.
Now thanks to Edizioni Hypnos, the Italian public has the opportunity to read the novella “Lovecraft Museum,” a finalist at the 2016 Shirley Jackson Awards, in the new series “Visioni.” The title is certainly very catchy and manages to immediately attract an old “Lovecraftian” like myself who, as soon as I read about stories or novels inspired by the art of the “solitary one from Providence,” perks up. The two quotes placed in the epigraph are from H.P. Lovecraft himself and William S. Burroughs. The story centers on Jamie, a somewhat paranoid character whose wife has died and whose son Henry disappeared after a trip they took together to London. Jamie thus withdraws into himself, becoming a sort of misanthrope and exorcising his existential unease with “weird” fiction, thanks to authors like M.R. James and, of course, H.P. Lovecraft.

He also begins to engage in extensive correspondence with enthusiasts of the genre, particularly with a certain Clarence, who invites him to go to England to visit the “Lovecraft Museum,” a bizarre museum dedicated to the universe of HPL. So he goes to London for the second time in his life in the hope of finding his son. Here he meets Clarence, a person who, in reality, turns out to be elusive and not empathetic at all, with whom he goes to visit the Lovecraft Museum. In a hallucinatory atmosphere, he believes he sees his missing son accompanied by Clarence among the rooms of the museum. The ending, very enigmatic and “Lovecraftian,” has him returning on the airplane in the company of Cthulu followers towards an unknown destiny.
I must say that the first part of “Lovecraft Museum” did not particularly excite me, quite conventional and a bit boring. However, the description of the museum is really successful: it seems like attending an exhibition of surrealist art: the settings of memorable stories like “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” come to life, as well as deities created by HPL's fervid imagination. Even Lovecraft himself, although not appreciating that movement, said in his correspondence that his monsters, in fact, are not so distant from certain “visions” of surrealist artists. Overall, the judgment is therefore positive, and I feel I can recommend “Lovecraft Museum” to fans of the “weird” and all followers of Lovecraft.
The volume can be purchased at the online store of Edizioni Hypnos.