Matt Ruff was born in the Queens, NY (USA), in 1965, and lives in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Lovecraft Country, a historical novel published in 2016. He writes thrillers as well as science-fiction and comic novels, being awarded several times for his two books: Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls (2003), and Bad Monkeys (2007). Learn more about the author in the follow up of the article.
Matt Ruff grew up in New York City. At a very early age he knew he wanted to become a writer. Therefore, he spent his childhood and adolescence learning how to tell stories.
He attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan; one of his teachers there was the memoirist Frank McCourt. He graduated from Cornell University in 1987, writing what would become his first published novel, Fool on the Hill, as his senior thesis in Honors English. Alison Lurie was one of Ruff’s English professors, and she helped Ruff find an agent.
Two, especially, of his books were a huge success. On the one hand, Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls (2003), which won critical acclaim, receiving the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, a Washington State Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award. On the other hand, Bad Monkeys (2007), who was awarded several times, winning the 2008 Alex Award, the PNBA Book Award and the Washington State Book Award, and reaching the rank of 2008 John Campbell Award Finalist.
His other titles are: The Mirage (2012), Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy (1997), and Fool on the Hill (1988).
Let’s discover Matt Ruff‘s latest book, Lovecraft Country, a historical novel published in 2016.
Synopsis:
The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy.
Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.
At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.
A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.