WEREWOLVES IN THEIR YOUTH (1999) by Michael Chabon

[GRWelsh]

I bought and read this collection of short stories when it first came out, and most of the stories are standard, contemporary literature, but the last one "In the Black Mill" is a Lovecraftian story written under the pseudonym of August Van Zorn, a fictional author of weird fiction. Michael Chabon is one of those writers loved by the literary crowd, but what I like best about him is that he has never been shy about his love for genre fiction. He has published stories of horror, swords & sorcery and even a Sherlock Holmes pastiche. I just reread "In the Black Mill" and it is fun but a bit silly as the word play is like constant winks to Lovecraft fans. I love that it is set in Southwestern Pennsylvania and makes use of local industry (steel mills, coal) and Native Americans (mound-builders) for a rough sketch of the background. I always thought if I wrote Lovecraftian fiction that is what I would do as well: not set my stories in New England -- an area I didn't grow up in and do not know well -- but locally. August Derleth wasn't a great Lovecraftian writer, but was at his best when setting his stories in his native Midwest; Ramsey Campbell used his native England near the Welsh border; W. H. Pugmire set many of his stories in the American Northwest near his home in Seattle; and so on. There is just an added level of authenticity when an author writes about what he knows. "In the Black Mill" is written in the first person from the perspective of an archaeology student from Boston pursuing a doctorate, coming to Plunkettsburg somewhere off the highway between Pittsburgh and Morgantown to study the dig site of Native American mound builders. The sly winks to the reader start right away... the dig site overlooks the Miskahannock River, named after the ancient Miskahannock [1] people, and is set in the the Yuggogheny Hills [2]. The chancellor at the local college is named Carlotta Brown-Jenkin [3]. At the boarding house where the protagonist stays, there is a porter named Halicek [4] with a daughter named Mrs. Eibonas [5] who has a son named Dexter [6]. All of this playfulness makes the story feel like a parody, but I'd call it a loving homage with a touch of dark humor.

[1] Combination of Miskatonic and Susquehannock: Native American people in Pennsylvania for whom the Susquehanna River is named.
[2] Combination of Yuggoth and Allegheny, and also similar to Youghigheny, an actual river in Pennsylvania.
[3] Brown Jenkin is the human-faced rat-like familiar of the witch in the HPL story "The Dreams of the Witch House."
[4] Similar to Hali from "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" by Ambrose Bierce, a name later used in THE KING IN YELLOW by Robert Chambers.
[5] Similar to The Book of Eibon, or the Liber Ivonis, a fictional occult book invented by Clark Ashton Smith.
[6] A possible nod to "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" by HPL.