H.P. Lovecraft wasn’t an author I’d read until I became more involved in the writing of the thing called ‘horror.’ He himself didn’t write very well, but he found a kind of niche, and had, and still has, a cult following. A year or so ago, my writing community had a lot of ding-dongs about him and insults were flying about here and there… very funny, very exciting. Lovecraft fans and cultists were expanding like puffer fish about the man as those of us who are unimpressed by him flung mud in his and their direction.
So, I decided to look into Lovecraft’s early life, as I was hoping to make a story out of him, and I very much wanted to find something morbid in his actual life. I didn’t have to look far; his mother apparently didn’t let him raise his arms above his head in case they dropped off….wow! There were the makings of a fine story. I called the story Teuthida, and it is to be found in my just published story collection Ragman and Other Family Curses, [Egaeus Press]. I tried to imagine how Lovecraft must have regarded his mother when the truth came with the help of a fictional friend I found for him. I would not like to have been her. In the story I did treat Lovecraft with tenderness and care, even though I have no real feelings for the author himself as a man.
