Name: Nicholas Hanemann's review of The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge
Item: The Night Ocean
Rating: 3
Author: Nicholas Hanemann

Paul La 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.

A Novel

The Night Ocean

Nicholas Hanemann

A very solid book, easily outstrips both Binet and Zafón. Highly recommended.

Paul LaFarge

"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"--

Alexis Palew

Heather Murray

This book was certainly interesting, and very different. I enjoyed the lively characters and the clear researched history of all of the literary legends. I thought some parts were just a bit chaotic, and it was hard to keep reading. The beginning had me completely hooked, but I had to stumble my way through the rest. The ending was just okay. 

What the novel did well though was bring to life figures that we thought that we knew, and twisted them into something unexpected. I'm not saying it's always a good thing to do, but I believe it's an interesting idea. This was unlike anything I'd ever read before, and I enjoyed the format. Sometimes things would get twisted, but that is what any good mystery does. While it didn't blow me away, I still enjoyed myself with this book. Would recommend for Lovecraft fans!

Laura

So, one might ask, what's a decidedly non speculative fiction fan doing reading a book about Lovecraft, the most famous speculative fiction writer after Tolkien? I have never read anything by Lovecraft, nor have I ever had any desire to. Back in high school, I was friends with a kid who was also a big reader, but he read exclusively thick, musty-looking mass-market paperbacks by big name fantasy and science fiction writers. He was a big Lovecraft fan, and that's probably why I never bothered with Lovecraft, because as much as I liked the kid, I would never have the stamina to read the books he did. So the answer to the above question is just that I liked Night Film and wanted to read a book similar to it. This book came up and the synopsis intrigued me enough to give it a shot. 

So naturally, I will not speak to the accuracy of anything that goes on in this book, because I wouldn't have any idea what I'm talking about. So I will only be talking about whether or not this is a good book as opposed to whether or not it is a good representation of Lovecraft. Okay? Cool.

This book is written from the perspective of the world's most tolerant wife. It's kind of sweet, actually, just how much Marina cares for and the extent she's willing to go to support her husband, Charlie, even long after most spouses would stop trying. She also never divorces him, though the two do separate. It's kind of admirable actually, and the relationship between Marina and Charlie is really the best part of the book. The rest of the characters? Well, they're interesting at first. And then I just kind of lost interest in them. 

Continue reading this review on my blog here: https://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/2...

Bryan Alexander

The Night Ocean is an unusual novel. One of its subjects is the American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, but I would not classify it as horror, and Lovecraft is not the main focus. Another subject is Robert Barlowe, a Lovecraft fan, writer, and historian. He's the focus of most reviews I've seen, but he gets crowded out by the book's second half. Other readers have seen the book's framing device as key. This is a story told by psychotherapist Marina Willett as she tries to understand the death or disappearance of her husband, Charlie. But this is only a frame, not what is framed.

So what's The Night Ocean about? It's a series of nested and linked short stories about writing and hoaxing. It begins with the Willetts and Charlie's investigation of Barlowe's life. Charlie finds evidence of a lost bit of Lovecraftiana involving Barlowe and seeks to establish it, both by investigation, then republication. This leads to a long biography of Barlowe, imagining two things: that he had an affair with Lovecraft, which both concealed; that he faked his suicide and led a life afterwards. This in turn leads to more stories, which I'll hide behind spoiler shields: (view spoiler)[a Canadian man faked much of this, so we see more of what happened to Charlie after his reputation collapses, then a dive into the hoaxer's life, or perhaps another hoax (hide spoiler)].

It's very readable. I kept pressing on, curious to see which directions it would take. The mysteries were engaging. Characters were interesting - except Marina Willett, who is relatively bland and underdrawn.

What to make of the whole thing?

One the one hand it feels like a love letter to storytelling and textual appreciation. La Farge has delved deeply into the Lovecraft world, and also into the various parts of Barlowe's, including preColumbian Mexican history, and it's hard not to enjoy this work. On the other hand, fandom comes across as shallow, sexist, ignorant in the midst of textual obsession, cruel, unproductive, and ultimately a waste of time.

There's some engagement with race. The Willetts' families are split by racism (her family hates blacks), there's Lovecraft's racism, and the awkwardness of Barlowe in Mexico: honest appreciator, or colonial tourist? 

Ultimately I think The Night Ocean is about hoaxing and confidence games. Each story concerns characters falling for others because of their schemes and stories. La Farge creates an elaborate textual tradition for his own Lovecraftian fictional book (Lovecraft loved the idea of imaginary books and used them extensively in his own writing, most famously the Necronomicon) and uses that to anchor parts of his own. He also creates a gloomy writer, Gilles Baron, who might be inspired by Thomas Ligotti. The final story before we return to the frame is about making up stories to win over other people. The frame concludes in an open way, undecided, leaving the reality of its component fictions up to you, dear reader.

A few more notes:
1) La Farge includes some fun alternate history in this novel. I was charmed by Lovecraftian fiction being put before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
2) One theme seems to reverberate for me after finishing the book: the frustrations of love amidst the love of horror. One character offers this rumination:
The American id could not be educated, Spinks thought. It needed horror in order to stay awake and to justify its most pleasureful pursuit, the destruction of helpless people who had never done anything wrong. America is truly Lovecraft’s country: fearful because it cannot love. (p. 364) This fits in well with the book's portraits of men who cannot love or who fail in it, from Love-craft (ha hah) to Barlowe to Charlie Willett. It also ties in with the book's love-hate relationship with horror.
3) I'm disappointed with the novel's engagement with race. It feels more like today's widespread political-culture move in response to Lovecraft, to mention and decry his racism. (To me this feels trite. HPL's politics were never a secret.)
4) This alt.history of fantastic fiction reminds me of Paul Di Filippo's Lost Pages.

Overall, recommended for those interested in these themes and people.

Nicholas Hanemann &
The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge

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Nicholas Hanemann &The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge

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The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge