1954, Chicago. Twenty-two-year-old demobilized soldier Atticus Turner loses track of his father, so he sets out to find him. He is accompanied by his uncle George, the editor of the Negro travel book, and his childhood friend, Letitia. Their journey leads to Samuel Braithwhite's country mansion in New England, the estate where Atticus' ancestors languished in slavery at the time. Along the way, they encounter not only the mundane horrors of white America, but also evil spirits that seem to come out of George's favorite fantasy stories.

Through the search for his father, Atticus discovers a secret sect, in whose mysterious ceremony he himself happens to be destined to play a key role. In order to escape the adventure alive, he is forced to do things that could lead to the destruction of the Turner clan.

Spanning time and space in Lovecraft's land, playing with magic, power, hope and freedom, his overwhelmingly powerful kaleidoscope draws a portrait of racism and its haunting and terrible effects through the very different members of two black families. Matt Ruff's novel, based on cosmic horror, gothic fantasy, and science fiction, was a unanimous critical success among both fiction and sci-fi/fantasy readers, and it was adapted into a series by HBO in 2020.