I AM PROVIDENCE is a book that I feel would really appeal to Lovecraft fans. I can imagine that this book would be a bit confusing to people with not much knowledge about Lovecraft's books. You do get information about Lovecraft, the man, and his books in the story. Especially about the Elder God Cthulhu, who will bring the end to humanity when summoned. And, yes there are those in the book that wants that.

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Content warning for violence, and for several uses of the N-word. A murder mystery, wherein a writer is murdered at a literary convention. The killer has to be one of the small circle of people at the convention - right?

Many there are who might take issue with the word "literary" here. The Summer Tentacular is a gathering of fans - and haters, the categories overlap - of the late [[H. P. Lovecraft]] (1890-1937), snob, racist, anti-Semite, and crafter of stories of cosmic horror, stories notable for their bad prose which have nonetheless caught the imaginations of generations of readers and writers. New writer Colleen Danzig is attending this Providence, Rhode Island weekend for her first time, meeting the longterm fans and professionals who have been coming for decades while nurturing friendships and - more commonly - grudges. The more normal of these folks could be called quirky or eccentric. Others...well, established, and widely detested, writer Panos Panossian has turned up dead in the laundry room, his face sliced off. He had had in his possession a valuable book bound in human skin, and that tome is missing. Will Colleen leave the detecting to the Providence police department? Of course not; she sets out to discover who in this small world has done the deed.

Later writers have produced numerous novels and stories set in Lovecraft's imagined "Mythos". Stephen King, Charles Stross, and Catherynne M. Valente are among the much better artists working with HPL's basic insight: that the universe is vast and old and utterly indifferent to humans, and we are perhaps better off not seeking too deeply into forbidden knowledge.

These real professionals do attend conventions, but the Summer Tentacular is Mamatas's invention, populated with a much less successful cohort, many of whom lead extremely marginal lives, earning little from their work. Most would have reasons for killing Panossian. Mamatas knows his milieu. His satire is not that much more extreme than the reality of actual science fiction/fantasy/horror conventions, filled with successful writers and editors and fans, but also with some who have nothing else in their lives.

The book is also a work of cosmic horror. Half the chapters are narrated by Panossian as he lies dead in a drawer in the morgue. Death, he learns, takes longer to complete than doctors understand. He follows the progress of his case by overhearing conversations among the witnesses who view his body, and recalls his hungry, angry life over the weekend, as he feels his brain decay toward a final oblivion. His fate will be shared by everyone whose brain is not destroyed at death; you, too, are a character in this story.

The horror is leavened with humor, e.g.: "the horror small press rule of thumb is this—the fancier the physical object, the worse the actual text between the covers..." or: "Now the stuff he produced wasn't very good, but if you're a fan and just want to consume nothing but Cthulhu all day while waiting for Cthulhu to come consume you, then it was fine." We're cosmically doomed, but that's no reason not to have a chuckle sometimes.

I don't read much Lovecraftian fiction, but in my limited experience Mamatas is uniquely interesting. ( )

One long hilarious and indulgent in-joke, but a wonderful fun read for anyone who's discussed Lovecraft on the internet, ever. ( )

I'm having trouble writing a review for this book without pissing people off or giving people the wrong idea about myself.
This book is supposedly about Colleen Danzig a writer who goes to a HP Lovecraft convention and gets more than she bargains for when her roommate for the convention turns up dead.
Ugh, ok here we go.... 😩
First off, I really do not care for the writing style. This book is written with two different points of view, one in first person the other in third person, and it bounces back and forth between the two. I personally think that the author should have left the first chapter written in the first-person narration and then the rest of the book written in third person rather than constantly going back to the first person point of view. It's disorienting and annoying to say the least.
Secondly, the first person point of view is narrated by a dead guy. Yes that's right, a dead guy! He is already dead when he begins to narrate this book for us. Not only is he dead but he is a total pretentious asshole. The back of book summary describes him as being "annoying" and no he is just a downright asshole. Like I hate to say it but I'm kind of glad he dies. But then I still have to listen to him rattling on even though he's already dead so I guess that defeats the purpose. Also the other main character (who is not dead) Colleen has to be one of the most annoying characters I've ever read. So basically both of the main characters are insufferable.
Thirdly, this is not a book about Lovecraft's mythos but more about bashing him and his fans. Very sad 💔
I guess that's all I have to say on this one. I definitely can't recommend this book. ( )

This book sounded like it would be so much fun! A murder mystery set at a Lovecraft Convention called the Summer Tentacular. I thought it would be quirky and interesting, and at first I was enjoying it. There was quite a bit of information on H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu Mythos, him as a person (including his horrible racism), and the reason his books have continued to have such an impact on the horror genre. The characters seemed somewhat interesting, but I quickly found myself at odds with the way some of the characters seemed to be portrayed ...or at least the way the author wanted the reader to see them. The first victim, for instance, was supposed to be very unlikeable, as many of the murder victims often are in the murder mystery genre... but he just didn't come across that way to me. If anything, I felt he was harassed and treated badly by most of the others for no real reason. I didn't really find him that unlikeable. Many of the other characters were much more unlikeable in my opinion, and the longer the story went on, the more they annoyed me. I also found some of the later things that happen to be so unlikely that it was impossible to suspend disbelief. It just didn't make sense to me and felt beyond ridiculous in parts. Clearly it wasn't a book for me. I did finish it, hoping that somehow I'd find more to enjoy once all the loose ends wrapped up, but if anything, the ending made me like it even less. Too bad, I had such high hopes for it. ( )