The Rats in the Walls ~ H.P. Lovecraft

The lesson of this story: Don’t rebuild your home if it is on the site of a former priory of Cybele. Not if you don’t want to end up in prison for sacrificing a friend to evil and having him for a meal. Lovecraft is the master, after all, and his telling of this story is utterly horrifying. He takes someone who seems to be a typical American with a slight fascination with his Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Having lost his only son, our protagonist, Delapore ends up purchasing an ancestral home. He restores it to what he thinks is its former glory, ignoring the locals who say the house and the family are cursed. It does not take long for Delapore to slowly lose his mind, starting with the rats he hears and sees under the wall tapestries. 

Horror is not my favorite genre, yet those who write horror seem to have skill making the reader experience what the characters are feeling. Stephen King is another who can, like Lovecraft, put you in the characters’ shoes. 

R is also for Roadtrip!

Zelka is telling Tarot Tales over at http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com/

The folks at Operation Awesome have more time than I do – they are reviewing books this month https://operationawesome6.blogspot.com/

And Romi is playing Hymns and Chorale Preludes at https://romi005.blogspot.com/

This month I am participating in the A to Z blog challenge. http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

The challenge involves 26 posts in April, all somehow connected to the alphabet. My theme for the month is short stories. The Story Factory needs market research, of course, so I will be reading a short story for each letter of the alphabet and trying to learn some new techniques for my story writing. My lacks seem to be characterization and emotional experience, so I am mainly looking for stories to teach me those things. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments if you know of an amazing story. Another component of the challenge is the blog road trip, where we visit each other’s blogs, leave comments, etc. While I would like to visit a couple of blogs every day, it is more realistic to do Road Trips on Sundays. (Of course, my ongoing, 52 bad story challenge is still on, as well as the 2021 creative hours in 2021.