Ripples from Carcosa

In the America of True Detective, things are never as simple as they seem. This is equally true for the New England of H. P. Lovecraft, the Yoknapatawpha County of William Faulkner, the New York and Paris of Robert W. Chambers in The King in Yellow, the many locales of Edgar Allan Poe, and the southern Louisiana of Richard Misrach and Kate Orff's Petrochemical America. In pursuit of truth and justice, or at least a criminal, and after excavating layers of misdirection designed to confuse the culprit's identity and obscure his guilt, corruption, graft, mendacity, and any combination of mortal sins the culprit has committed, the detective may find that underneath each layer is not the truth, but instead yet another strategy of concealment. Instead of turtles all the way down, he sees more lies.