Dustbowl Gothic

Fantasies set in a 1930s sort of setting are pretty rare, so when I heard about Robert Jackson Bennett's Mr. Shivers it piqued my interest. The titular Mr. Shivers is a scar-faced murder roaming Depression era America, a boogie-man among hobos and itinerants--and perhaps a supernatural entity.  The novel tells the story of group of disparate individuals, their lives destroyed by an encounter with Shivers, who set out on the road to find him and bring him to justice.

Bennett's prose is probably most reminiscent of Stephen King.  The view it presents of the American Dustbowl touched by creepy horror recalls HBO's Carnivale.  Still, the tale it tells is its own and is engaging in a gritty, pulpy sort of way.  Bennett sometimes tends to have the characters give a little more exposition about the facts of the Dustbowl or the Great Depression than seems realistic, but this is a minor complaint.

The novel would certainly make good inspiration for a Depression era horror or dark fantasy campaign.