The Broken Hours: A Novel of H.P. Lovecraft
It is 1936, and even wealthy Providence, Rhode Island suffers in the grip of the Depression. Arthor Crandle, estranged from his family and desperate for employment, takes a job as personal assistant to a reclusive author of “weird fiction.” As he settles in to his employer’s eerie home, Crandle cannot escape feelings of unease as he realizes there is something malevolent in the house… or perhaps in his seldom-seen employer.
This atmospheric literary thriller is skillfully constructed, and it offered some moments of heart-rate increase I seldom experience outside a cardio session. I was unfamiliar with Lovecraft’s personal life/family history, and that stood me in good stead here – I might have seen some things coming had I known his biography, thereby lessening the suspense, which is deliciously crafted in this disquieting Gothic novel. Baker’s characterization is strong, her prose evocative, and the ambiance she creates as creepy as a frigid draft that blows a door shut in an empty house. The pacing is superb; it neither drags nor sweeps the reader too precipitously.
Along with the apprehension (and, admittedly, sometimes out-and-out fear) she provokes, there is also the element of character study that intrigues. Having read some of Lovecraft’s work, it seems to me that Baker may have captured the feel, the essence, of the strange “Ech-Pi” that is reflected therein. She is equally adept at her characterization of the fictional Crandle and his lifeline to light and normalcy, the home’s other tenant, a young blond with the expressive name of Flossie Kush. When the novel’s final twist comes, you may feel, as did I, a desire to go back and re-read with a somewhat different perspective. I finished this novel in one sitting, and found nothing to disappoint. That’s not something I can say about many of the books I crack open.
