“The American dream depends on the question: ‘What is reality?'” a new trailer for “Lovecraft Country” hints. An adaptation of the 2016 novel of the same name, the HBO series tells the story of Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”), a Black man who embarks on a road trip through the Jim Crow-era South in search of his missing father (Michael Kenneth Williams, “The Wire”) and the “secret legacy” and “birthright” his father suggests have been kept from them in Lovecraft Country. Atticus is joined on the journey by his friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett, “Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn”) and his Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance, “The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story”).

Despite being warned that the folks in Lovecraft Country “don’t like outsiders at all” and there have been stories “about travelers being attacked in the surrounding woods,” Atticus isn’t deterred. He’s drawn to stories about heroes going on “adventures in other worlds to fight insurmountable odds.” But the world Atticus, Letitia, and George find themselves in is horrific indeed. “I know we were all meant to go through trials and tribulations, but this world is haunting us,” says Letitia, as we see imagery of a burning cross. “It’s like the devil.”

“Lovecraft Country” follows the trio’s “struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback,” according to HBO’s synopsis of the project.

Misha Green (“Underground”) created “Lovecraft Country.” The series debuts on HBO in August.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJV9acMsDwM&feature=youtu.be