Paul Farge

From the award-winning author and New Yorker contributor, a riveting novel about secrets and scandals, psychiatry and pulp fiction, inspired by the lives of H.P. Lovecraft and his circle. Marina Willett, M.D., has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends--or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears. The police say it's suicide. Marina is a psychiatrist, and she doesn't believe them. A tour-de-force of storytelling, The Night Ocean follows the lives of some extraordinary people: Lovecraft, the most influential American horror writer of the 20th century, whose stories continue to win new acolytes, even as his racist views provoke new critics; Barlow, a seminal scholar of Mexican culture who killed himself after being blackmailed for his homosexuality (and who collaborated with Lovecraft on the beautiful story "The Night Ocean"); his student, future Beat writer William S. Burroughs; and L.C. Spinks, a kindly Canadian appliance salesman and science-fiction fan -- the only person who knows the origins of The Erotonomicon, purported to be the intimate diary of Lovecraft himself. As a heartbroken Marina follows her missing husband's trail in an attempt to learn the truth, the novel moves across the decades and along the length of the continent, from a remote Ontario town, through New York and Florida to Mexico City. The Night Ocean is about love and deception -- about the way that stories earn our trust, and betray it.

Doktorka Marina Willetová to vůbec nemá lehké, její manžel Charlie si totiž vypěstoval závislost na autorovi hororů H. P. Lovecraftovi. Zejména je fascinován událostmi z léta roku 1934, kdy samotářský spisovatel strávil dva měsíce se svým mladým fanouškem Robertem Barlowem. Co ty dva spojovalo a co k sobě cítili? Když už si Charlie myslí, že hádanku vyřešil, vypukne skandál a on zmizí. Policie to označí za sebevraždu, ale Marina této verzi nevěří. Ve snaze zjistit pravdu se vydává po manželových stopách, které ji zavedou nejen k Futuriánům, skupině mladých autorů science fiction, ale i k Williamu S. Burroughsovi nebo k takzvanému Erotonomikonu, jenž je považován za intimní deník samotného Lovecrafta. Ať už patříte k vyznavačům díla mistra hrůzy z Providence, nebo se setkáváte s Lovecraftovým jménem poprvé, téhle románové pokloně psychiatrii a pulp fiction podlehnete dřív, než řeknete Cthulhu.