“An sint unquam daemones incubi et succubae, et an ex tali congressu proles nasci queat?”
(The Horror at Red Hook, pg.330)
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Set in New York city, this is a rather long-winded tale that should be at least half the size it is. In a nutshell, Detective Malone, who is interested in the strange and unusual, luckily gets put on a case regarding a strange old man by the name of Suydam who is, not surprisingly, also into the strange and unusual. Suydam invites a lot of questionable people to property he purchases where they perform uncouth rites. It isn’t very clear, but I guess Suydam made a deal with some demons or Lilith in particular, but suddenly he was young again and acting like everything was great and normal. Until he married—after which both he and his bride were murdered (or at least the bride is. It’s never specified how exactly Suydam died) and Suydam’s body is brought back to the area of Red Hook just as it’s being raided by the cops and Malone falls down a deep hole. It is in that hole where all kinds of demons and whatnot are throwing a party and Suydam kind of wakes up, and I guess maybe he’s mad or something because he messes up a monument? I’m unclear on the details because they weren’t very good. Malone doesn’t even really have any kind of active role in the story other than to exist and then witness a bit of demonic activity.
The whole story is marred by it’s length and all the annoying references to how awful the people were that lived in Red Hook. Because of course they’re all immigrants and not pretty blue-eyed folk (those are the ones whose children get kidnapped). Instead they’re all dark and “swarthy,” and apparently everyone living in Red Hook is into criminal activity, demons, and occult stuff. Yazidi get called out by name and dubbed “devil-worshippers.” While I’m not any sort of anthropologist even I’ve heard the name of Yazidi and thought, “Pretty sure that’s not right.” (This actually led me to do some research into the Yazidi religion which is, in fact, quite interesting—and also not devil worship related. Surprise.) So it’s all, “Ew look at all these dirty people and how weird they are and then OH MY OOGA BOOGA DEMONS.” I am not impressed.
And someone should have told Lovecraft to quit using the word “squalid” and its close relatives like “squalor.” We get it, these poor people are icky, move on please.
“He”
This one was a little lackluster. The unnamed first person narrator (as per usual) is in New York, yet he laments being in the city, which shows nothing of its old origins in the same way that London does. Instead everything is icky and dull (1920s? Yeah, probably) and the narrator’s sad poet soul tries to cling to places like Greenwich where some of the niceties of old New York remain (although comparing old New York to old London doesn’t really work in the first place, but whatever).
Thus does our narrator meet up with a strange but seemingly polite old man who takes him to his house and for some very weak and less-than-intelligent reasons, showcases powers of time travel/control (that apparently a group of Native Americans used to know). That’s when the narrator glimpses the future, freaks out, and then the old spirits of the aforementioned Native Americans roll in and take the stranger. After the moonlight burns his skin black.
Ok, what?
This story lacks a lot of the usual Lovecraftian vibe and is more like some kind of (further?) reaction to New York itself, and I guess while being here he decided to drag some Native Americans into it for no other reason than “spooky Native American powers.” On the whole it made no sense and just felt like Lovecraft was mad at stuff. Move out of New York; it’s clearly not working for you. Also, racism. Ugh.
Featured image © Nicole Taft
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