Cthulhu in Mexico

In his book Eldritch Mexico, Mexican author A.H. Donbury bravely attempts to place aspects of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu universe into modern-day Mexico. For Lovecraft, setting and place were always crucially important in his telling of weird horror. Intwined with setting and place was the concept of geography, geography being a crucial part of history and bringing with it its own character (something that I have elsewhere called Lovecraft’s “PsychoHistory”). To the best of my knowledge Lovecraft did not mention or acknowledge Mexico directly in any of his works. He did mention the prospect of Hispanics being brought into the fabric of American life in a private correspondence with famed fantasy author Robert E. Howard, saying: “In the end, the New Mexican Spanish-speakers will probably be Anglicized–such being the general trend whenever a foreign region is incorporated into the continuous fabric of an Anglo-Saxon land.” For Lovecraft who expressed a great concern for issues of race, ethnicity and demographics both in and outside of his fiction works, such an assimilation would not be without importance or meaning. So, it was with great interest that I purchased Eldritch Mexico when it was released.

What I was hoping for – to the extent that I could envision such a thing – was an incorporation of a setting like ancient Mexico so well-suited to Lovecraftian lore (especially as it relates to The Old and Ancient Ones) that also maintained enough ingredients to the HPL cocktail to connect the pieces while keeping me, a cultural outsider, engaged. On each of these fronts, the book did not disappoint especially as it regards to expanding the geographical origins of parts of an expanded Cthulhu universe in a way that felt very authentic and, under the Lovecraftian circumstances, very believable. This was done without falling for the temptation that many new wave Lovecraftian writers indulge in which is to attempt to rehabilitate (or appropriate) Lovecraft’s reputation as a racialist, aristocrat, and bigot into something so modern that Lovecraft would refuse to recognize or acknowledge if he was alive today. What we find in Eldritch Mexico is a fantastic story that builds slowly towards an epic finale worthy of the best weird horror post-HPL. There is no preaching or apologizing, only a fantastic story that takes place between two countries, one family, and thousands of years.

The story involves a touching family brother-and-sister dynamic that is relatable in a way that Lovecraft himself couldn’t or wouldn’t write. Lovecraft’s refusal and/or inability to handle female characters limited the types of brushes he could use to paint his plots, and Donbury here fills in what a HPL story with a multiplicity of female characters might have looked like. This includes a American girl of Mexican heritage named Kathryn who goes missing while on a trip to Mexico. Through a series of familiar steps of soul-searching and enjoying the thrills of a nomadic unattached lifestyle inspired in part to escape a family structure that seemed boring and stagnant, she finds ultimate respite in her ancestral home of her Mexican family that she previously did not even know existed. The characters and family situations here keep the reader interested, with dysfunction and frustration wrapped in the brooding fantastic that for me was reminiscent of Donnie Darko.

With Kathryn missing, and strange events happening to his family, the dutiful older brother Peter heads off to find her and bring her back home. Here we find a familiar and worthy Lovecraftian device: the male family member who is on a mission to find out more about his family tree, and in doing so finds things so unspeakable that he is changed forever. The difference here is that it is not until the very end that the hero (who, unlike so many of the Lovecraft tales is not also the narrator) did not know that he was on a mission to discover his true family identity. In finding his sister, he finds himself, as their family is bound up in a heap of Lovecraftian paraphernalia that comes at the reader in a thrilling rapid abundance in the final pages.

One of Donbury’s greatest contributions to the Lovecraftian universe here is in his Old Ones-offshoot characters of the Fanged Father and assorted unspeakable hordes of those in his ambit. Such characters and their influence on the individuals who helped to extend the Mexican cult in the story will be immensely satisfying to longtime readers of Lovecraft and will thoroughly freak out those new to such unnerving, pre-existing terrors. Like many of Lovecraft’s works, everything is really brought home in the last few pages. The Spanish Corsair and his attendant crew deserve their own book! The description of the dark marriage and the testimony told by the judge and priest are also highlights that tick all of the Lovecraftian boxes in interesting and compelling ways.

In conclusion this book represents a great new expansion of the H.P. Lovecraft universe into other cultures and places, and it does it with a smooth modern style that manages to respect Lovecraft while providing a modern twist. Donbury is to be congratulated on diversifying the Cthulhu universe while presenting a story firmly in line with the things that the New England Gentleman himself found most satisfying in a weird horror story. Here in the wild and ancient Mexican unknown, a great Lovecraftian tale is found.

Eldritch Mexico
By A.H. Donbury
Independently published, 2023; 94pp

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