The story in one page
Wilbur Whateley is a peculiar young man from a remote Massachusetts village, known for his goatish face and ability to age years in mere months. He spends his time studying forbidden texts to prepare for a looming ritual. After he attempts to steal a book from a university library and dies, an invisible, ever-expanding force terrorizes the local countryside. Dr. Armitage and his colleagues realize the creature is Wilbur’s hidden twin, a cosmic anomaly that must be stopped before it completes a plan to bring more such beings to earth. They use ancient incantations to force the entity back into the nothingness from which it came.
Who's who
- Wilbur Whateley
A human-hybrid man using forbidden knowledge to summon cosmic forces.
- Dr. Armitage
A librarian and scholar who uses ancient rituals to fight entities.
- Lavinia
The mother of Wilbur and his invisible, monstrous twin brother.
- Yog-Sothoth
The cosmic entity serving as the father to Wilbur’s twin.
What it's really about
- Outsideness
- Forces operating outside human laws and nature.
- Forbidden Heredity
- The consequences of cross-breeding with cosmic entities.
Why it's memorable
- Dogs howling at an empty house because they sense the invisible brother.
- A library corpse transforming into a mixture of human and goat features.
The ending, explained
Spoilers — show the ending
Armitage reveals that the creature they banished was Wilbur's twin brother, who possessed more of his cosmic father's traits than Wilbur himself.
For your book club
- Why dogs instinctively loathe the Whateley family bloodline.
- The role of the Necronomicon in facilitating inter-dimensional trespassing.