Lonesome Places | Social Concerns

Lonesome Places Social Concerns

Lonesome Places is a collection of short fantasy and ghost fiction, many of which were first published in the magazine Weird Tales. Written as entertainment only, few of the stories espouse anything that could be considered a social cause, but careful observation reveals some concerns that must have been Derleth's. In two of the stories, Derleth's characters encounter "psychic residue," and in several others they are plagued with elements that could well be the same. "Psychic Residue" is the stuff of evil that can remain in a place if it is not cleaned out. Repeatedly, in Derleth's tales, warning signs of danger from another dimension are ignored until somebody dies an untimely death at which time city fathers or property owners "clean out" the area. Such is the case in "The Lonesome Place" in which children are plagued by a sense of danger adults find purely imaginary. Then the death...
(read more)