Among the delights, the surprisingly poignant musings of the freshly murdered hero regarding mortality, as well as some helpful reminders to lower our expectations after death (not a spoiler, as he's already dead on the back cover), details on how exactly Lovecraft snags all those pouty darklings when they're young, hints of the theological knots religious types tie themselves in to make room in their brains for Lovecraft's "gutter Satanism," all sorts of digs at horror scenesters - because I'm not entrenched enough in the scene to project myself onto these digs, I confess being unable to understand the minor internet backlash against the book, the talk of it being thinly disguised nonfiction and score-settling, which is every book though, right? I'm guessing readers enjoy imagining themselves as fictionalized villains or taking part in a literary grudge match, which is sort of like when our high school tried desperately to be someone else's rival team but the other schools had already paired off years ago and never knew we existed.
What else? There's a great sample "'zine" in there, too, complete with a funky fan-fic sample and fortune-cookie flash fiction, which was a lotta fun. Was that a real magazine? I wish. But as the author warns us, Googling the title of this 'zine is like playing Russian Roulette, so we may never know. The jokes in the 'zine sound a bit like the narrator though... but he also confesses its huge influence on his writing. So, around and around we go!
The entertainment factor is high throughout - full of hilarious zingers aimed at horror conventions, and the best ones are uttered with a straight face (for example, when the protagonist tries to make a point that a rock-wielding suspect with a weak pitching hand might be a female, the retort: "Let me assure you that many of the young men assembled here throw like girls."
The chapter titles are fascinating, too, as they're all H.P. Lovecraft story titles (I think), and Mamatas finds increasingly clever ways to tie them into the action, or tie the action into them? It's a chicken-or-the-egg situation, right? Sort of like the suspiciously perfect song lyrics Alan Moore used throughout Watchmen - it's hard to imagine the book without this kind of riffing. The novel, like the fictional Summer Tentactular conference itself, is fully realized and tragically believable, right down to the politics, Deviant Art swipes, and the strange smells (if you want to laugh right now, check out the first paragraph, which both cleverly introduces our dead hero and insults his fans at the same time - shots fired!). In fact, I'm going to assume its depictions are 100% realistic and negate any need to attend a horror conference in the future, making this one of the most practical books on my shelf, just below 101 Suckerpunches.
Other interesting touches - a rare book is the catalyst for murder, social media whipped out like a gun ("Don't you people know how to disarm a 21st-Century girl? I'm streaming this sh*t!"), though I did grow a little weary of the longish flashbacks to online drama, maybe because it hit too close to home to frighten, or maybe, because of my own Facebook addiction, that was a level of cosmic dread I wasn't ready to face. I was also confused with the number of times people hung out at the morgue, but the corpse musings were among my favorite passages, so it all worked out. As far as actual horror content, I enjoyed how the novel stayed with the human breed of monstrosity for the duration, with just a little taste of the supernatural during the first-person interludes, which felt less like fantasy and more like a completely logical and nihilistic depiction of the afterlife we should both expect and certainly deserve.
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Reviews with images
DUMB & DUMBER IN LOVECRAFTLAND
I want to frame this review with three things: 1) this is a work of fiction, 2) I love the Lovecraft community, and 3) I loved I AM PROVIDENCE. I thought it was a riot. A fun romp, a quick read, and at moments hilarious. Deeply funny things have a strong element of truth to them. I can have fun romping around in a book which criticizes something I enjoy. I knew this book would elicit a very strong response, that it would be very polarizing. I have healthy self-esteem, didn't take this personally, and appreciated it as a work of fiction, so I had a lot of fun reading it. It made me look forward to Lovecraft events even more. Being the easy peasy girl/author/attendee that I am, I find myself navigating around the truly eye roll worthy figures during these things, but now I will get the added bonus of a snicker or two as I recall certain things lampooned in I AM PROVIDENCE. I highly recommend this work to anyone but especially to readers or writers like myself who go to these events. I think if we can all come together to appreciate and celebrate work written by an overt/arguable/possibly reformed racist (depending on which camp you fall in), then we can come together to celebrate and appreciate a very funny work written by a critical humorist who chose to sharpen his knives over our shared love. Check it out. It's funny, easy to read, and it (probably) won't hurt your woo woo.
Top reviews from other countries
DAVID A DEL COL
The Unspeakble horror of Nick Mamatas
Reviewed in Canada on August 16, 2017
