[Our Lady of Darkness is] an absolutely superb book, Leiber's first novel of the supernatural since the incredible Conjure Wife…. (p. 4)
While the novel is easy to read and follow, almost every page is filled with little sub-plots and commentaries that shift and slide with ambiguous purpose. The reader who is familiar with Leiber's own background may be convinced the book is only a thinly disguised autobiography embellished with interludes of supernatural horror. And those with a solid grounding in supernatural literature and the histories of its practitioners (especially H. P. Lovecraft) will understand how Leiber is creating a fantastically successful tour de force of the entire genre. The whole performance is a sophisticated sleight-of-hand creation that may seem perilous to "mainstream" readers … but is not so esoteric that it cannot be enjoyed simply as a witty, amusing and, finally, terrifying tale of occult forces at work in the modern world.
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Read the rest of this Criticism with our Leiber, Fritz (Reuter), (Jr.) 1910–: Critical Essay by Richard Delap Access Pass.
