Books like Move Under Ground

Spooktober read #3!I am ashamed to say that this has been on my shelves for so long that I actually can’t remember buying it. But to be fair, the timing for finally getting around to “Move Under Ground” couldn’t have been more perfect, as I just re-read “The Dharma Bums” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... the manic-style Mr. Kerouac is so well-known for was still fresh in my mind, and I was excited to see how he would handle Cthulhu.As any Christopher Guest fan knows, you have to love something to make fun of it well. I knew Mamatas loved Lovecraft (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), but I didn’t know he loved the Beats too! In “Move Under Ground”, he brings the two together wonderfully. After sleeping for eons, Cthulhu and his sunken city of R’lyeh surface near Big Sur, where Jack Kerouac is busy doing what he does best: writing and drinking. He grabs his friends Neal Cassady and William Burroughs and they drive East, in an attempt to outrun the Ancient Ones flooding their beloved West Coast, but it won’t be smooth sailing for the freewheeling Beats: there will be plenty of Elder Gods, cultists and hallucinatory twists and turns along the way.I must say, I am pretty glad that someone else thinks that Neal Cassady was a morally bankrupted SOB. I am so tired of Neal/Dean being idolized, but I was pleased to see that Mamatas doesn’t seem to like him much either. And the idea of conformists as the evil agents of the Lovecraftian pantheon is a fascinating perspective. He also cleverly weaves Kerouac’s interest in Buddhism into the narrative, and perfectly captures the way his fellow writers, such as Ginsberg or Burroughs, would react when faced with world-ending tentacular monstrosities. Mamatas does something amazing with his set up: he captures the rhythmic, often disjointed but vividly evocative style that Kerouac wrote in when he was at top form. This makes this Cthulhu apocalypse feel wild and disorienting, in the same way “On the Road” felt. – and I loved it! But while Mamatas pays a loving homage to the King of Beats, he also doesn’t glorify him: he is very lucid about Kerouac’s flaws and shortcomings.Sure, this has “gimmicky crossover” written all over it, but it’s fun, surprisingly clever, and a really remarkable homage to two great writers who were both extremely flawed men, but nevertheless left a lasting influence on the books we read. Obviously. I think Mamatas is a very underrated writer, and I would recommend his work to any fans of cerebral Lovecraftiana.4 and a half stars.