H P Lovecraft anyone familiar with his work?

[Mossball]

Anyone familiar with HP Lovecraft? My son has taken an interest in his books. I've never heard of him but looking at what he writes it's not a genre I particularly enjoy so I can understand why. Are these books suitable for a 15 year old boy? I have a copy of the call of Cthulhu which I plan on reading. I know he holds racist views which DS knows are wrong. Much as I like DS reading I don't want to encourage books that might be unsuitable.

I think he should go ahead and read it. You can discuss the racist views with your boy later but i don't [personally think books should be avoided because of old fashioned views and it is a good way of letting your child know what is wrong and right (for now) and how things are different now in the same way I believe statues and stuff should stand but information to include all they did. No one being perfect and to give a more rounded view of the history of the person,

I'm a huge HPL fan. I think it's ok for a 15yo, it's obviously gothic/folk horror, but no worse than Stephen King.

I started reading it as a teenager and have loved it since.

I was reading HP Lovecraft at his age, it is a bit trippy to say the least. Call of Cthulhu is a short story but a good introduction to his work and horror fiction. At the Mountains of Madness was hard work and I preferred the The Shadow over Innsmouth.

They are very strange books and not especially well written. Yes Lovecraft was a racist and that does influence some of the plots, but I think as long as your son is aware of the absolute abhorrence of this and on the look out for it. I don't imagine at his age he is likely to approach them thinking "this writer's world vision must be the absolute moral truth."

What are your specific concerns? I wouldn't expect to be censoring a 15 year old's reading choices very much to be honest......

Thanks everyone off the back of this I am happy to let him read these books.

I don't have specific concerns @Ilovelurchers but DS is ASD and he tends to hyperfocus on new ideas and I would prefer to avoid any that he might take on without seeing the bigger picture.