Victor LaValle

One of NPR's Best Books of 2016, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, the This is Horror Award for Novella of the Year, and a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there. Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping. A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break? "LaValle's novella of sorcery and skullduggery in Jazz Age New York is a magnificent example of what weird fiction can and should do." — Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All "[LaValle] reinvents outmoded literary conventions, particularly the ghettos of genre and ethnicity that long divided serious literature from popular fiction." — Praise for The Devil in Silver from Elizabeth Hand, author of Radiant Days “LaValle cleverly subverts Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos by imbuing a black man with the power to summon the Old Ones, and creates genuine chills with his evocation of the monstrous Sleeping King, an echo of Lovecraft’s Dagon... [The Ballad of Black Tom] has a satisfying slingshot ending.” – Elizabeth Hand for Fantasy & ScienceFiction At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Ballad of Black Tom

"When [Charles Thomas Tester] delivers an occult book to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, [he] opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping"--Page 4 of cover.

Ang 

"I bear a hell within me," Black Tom growled. "And finding myself unsympathized with, wished to treat up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around MD, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin."

A fear of cosmic indifference suddenly seemed comical, or downright naive. Tester looked back to Malone and Mr. Howard. Beyond them he saw the police forces at the barricades as they muscled the crowd of Negroes back; he saw the patrol cars parked in the middle of the road like three great black hounds waiting to pounce on all these gathered sheep. What was indifference compared to malice? 

"Indifference would be such a relief," Tommy said. 

"The more I read, the more I listened,  the more sure I became that a great and secret show had been playing throughout my life,  throughout all our lives,  but the mass of us were too ignorant, or too frightened, to raise our eyes and watch. Because to watch would be to understand the play isn't being staged for us. To learn we simply do not matter to the players at all."

"Time spent with my family, with my old friends of means, began to feel like bathing in porridge, drowning in a child's meal."

"Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he? Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves."

Sandrin

this should have been at least 300 pages. Would really have liked to see more of Tommy Tester.

Breathtaking. Not only asking all the right questions, but also answering them. What‘s an eldritch cosmic being compared to the everyday sadism of racist supremacists?

„I’ll take Cthulhu over you devils any day.“

Nezumi

Breathtaking. Not only asking all the right questions, but also answering them. What‘s an eldritch cosmic being compared to the everyday sadism of racist supremacists?

„I’ll take Cthulhu over you devils any day.“

rumbledethumps

A re-telling of Lovecraft's story "The Horror at Red Hook," re-told in a way that addresses the racist aspects of the original story. LaValle's is a better story, and even ties the tale in to the Old Ones mythos.

Midori Kobayashi

4/5 stars 


Give people what they expect and you can take from them all that you need.

Okay, so a lot of people compare this to Lovecraft's works and real talk: I've never read any of his works, and neither do I plan to. No, I just can't. But this on its own very well stood out and I think every horror enthusiast should definitely read it!

Mankind didn’t make messes; mankind was the mess.

Apart from the usual dose of horror, the story also gives a very well-written commentary on the prevalent racism in the society around that time (It is set in the 1920s as far as I remember). The best part is that these things still exist- racism, poverty, and police brutality. And this commentary is very much so valid even now! 

So, if you're looking for a Lovecraft-esque vibe minus the xenophobia and racism, this is your book!

The veil of ignorance has been set over your face since birth. Shall I pull it free?


  TWs for the book: parental death, gore, police brutality, racism

Ryan LaFerney

Nominated for a Hugo, Nebula, and Shirley Jackson Awards, Victor LaValle’s riveting horror tale The Ballad of Black Tom, which is a spin and critique of the Lovecraft mythos, a man is beckoned to the threshold of apocalypse with the promise of seeing beyond the fabric of reality. The story is about Tommy Tester, a 20-year-old black man hustling to pay rent and take care of his father in Harlem in 1924. After being hired to deliver an arcane book to a mysterious woman in Queens, Tommy gets entangled in the plans of the wealthy Robert Suydam, who is intent on calling forth ancient gods, and Detective Malone, who investigates him.

As mentioned in LaValle’s tale, Tester is invited to be a part of Robert Suydam’s plot to conjure the Great Old Ones, ancient, tentacled creatures that are at the core of Lovecraft’s mythos. Suydam opens Tester’s eyes to the frightening cosmic indifference of the monsters. But when getting involved with Suydam brings down the law on Tommy, he realizes that in light of the racist criminality of the NYPD,

"a fear of cosmic indifference suddenly seemed comical, or downright naïve… he saw the patrol cars parked in the middle of the road like three great black hounds waiting to pounce on all these gathered sheep. What was indifference compared to malice?"

The world will always be a devil’s bargain, Tommy realizes. It’s just a matter of which devils he wants to deal with...

This is a story that juxtaposes Lovecraftian mythology against the racism and inequality of 1920s New York. It's poetic and it is frightening. The constant inequality that Tommy faces ends up being reason enough to justify drastic, desperate action to bring about the end of the novella, by dealing with forces Tommy doesn’t fully understand, but welcomes wholeheartedly by declaring:

"I'll take Cthulhu over you devils any day."

Lovecraft pulled back the veil to show us his racist monsters. A writer of intense, morbid and cloistered passions, Lovecraft expressed a pervasive disgust with physical existence itself, as well as the cosmic dread for which he has often been celebrated. Yet he reserved his most intimate revulsion for those human beings he regarded as, for example, "a bastard mess of stewing Mongrel flesh without intellect, repellent to the eye, nose and imagination."

 LaValle pulls back the veil to show us how the monster of racism dooms us all. And The Ballad of Black Tom, although set in 1920s New York, couldn't be more timely. For the devil of racism and racial inequality is still with us today.

Janice Hopper

I was curious about this books from the first time I heard about it. It takes a look at the Lovecraft mythos from the point of view of a black man in Harlem back in the 20's? I think.

I think it's a really good thing to look at this older work from a very new viewpoint. The author has some interesting things to say Scalzi's blog (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/02/17...) about Lovecraft and the feelings he had while reading him. There was the early "OMG what is this crazy, amazing, cosmic stuff??? I love it!" And there was the later realization of the problematic aspects of Lovecraft's writing and his attitudes towards some groups of people. I think he did a good job of balancing the storytelling between the Lovecraftian elements, and the point-of-view character.

And it might make you think about climate change differently too.

Didi Chanoch

I found this novella a bit uneven. At times, it is brilliant and poignant, especially in the original POV, that of the eponymous Black Tom. It falls apart a little after that, and the denouement isn't as powerful as the build up. 

It kinda felt more important than actually enjoyable. LaValle certainly got his point across powerfully. But as a story, it doesn't hold up as much as I would like. I still definitely recommend reading it.

Hands down the best Lovecraft homage I've read to date! Not just for how refreshing it is to center a black protagonist in a racist Lovecraft universe, but also how rare it is that someone writing a Lovecraft homage understands it's not about neatly referencing the old familiar pantheon ("Cthulhu's 

, and look, a Byatis cameo!") but about the multitudes of disconcerting unknowns, the many and varied pinpricks of creepy that start to vaguely outline some huge and fundamental wrongness in the universe.

LaValle's book jumps right in, there are little droplets of magic everywhere, there are supernatural characters and items hiding in every cranny, and our protagonist knows it, he's familiar with it! I think that's the best part of all, that we're not forced to spend two thirds of a book watching a main character go "But that's impossible! I don't believe it!" There are mind-ruining reveals and unknowable horrors, but the elegance of dropping us right into a story where that's a given really made this a worthwhile read.

Tilde C

Hands down the best Lovecraft homage I've read to date! Not just for how refreshing it is to center a black protagonist in a racist Lovecraft universe, but also how rare it is that someone writing a Lovecraft homage understands it's not about neatly referencing the old familiar pantheon ("Cthulhu's here, Yog-Sothoth over there, and look, a Byatis cameo!") but about the multitudes of disconcerting unknowns, the many and varied pinpricks of creepy that start to vaguely outline some huge and fundamental wrongness in the universe.

LaValle's book jumps right in, there are little droplets of magic everywhere, there are supernatural characters and items hiding in every cranny, and our protagonist knows it, he's familiar with it! I think that's the best part of all, that we're not forced to spend two thirds of a book watching a main character go "But that's impossible! I don't believe it!" There are mind-ruining reveals and unknowable horrors, but the elegance of dropping us right into a story where that's a given really made this a worthwhile read.

Alisha 

Shafel McDowall

Whew, this book took me for a ride. I had no idea what this book was about and I'm glad I didn't going into it. Very beautifully written I might add. My only reason for not giving it 5 stars is that the ending left me feeling kinda "meh". I wanted just a little more, you know? 

It is extremely hard to write a full story with one book and have your characters well developed, but the author managed to do that. This book is very commendable and I understand why it won all those awards.

I was really interested in this for the first half, but the second half got weird and a bit hard to follow. I'm starting to notice a trend in my reading: I'm not a huge fan of Lovecraftian horror. I much prefer things with more explanation. That said, I enjoyed this for the most part, even if I would've liked more specifics on the horror involved. It was well-written and I found Black Tom to be a sympathetic character. I did really appreciate the added racial dynamics to contrast w/ Lovecraft's racism!

Katie

A fantastical mystery where you can't quite tell who the bad guy is. Is it everyone? Is it no one? Victor LaValle's writing style draws you in while never quite giving everything away. I usually struggle with historical fantasy and this was no different. It's just not really my genre but I still enjoyed this.

Jordan Robinson

Katrina White

This novella packs such a big punch. It takes so many different themes and to weave them together really well for the most part. 

 Charles Tommy Tester is a low-level hustler. He dresses a certain way, plays guitar (badly) and make some money by presenting this scruffy jazz image of himself. Then adds a little more on top of that by playing the numbers which is enough to get him and his father by. 

I was delighted and charmed by Tommy's view of New York's underbelly. His view was full of music and different types of brown faces and the different kinds of food they eat. 

Then there is a shocking brutality that is visited upon his family and I had to stop and take a break even though this is a short book. I am an extremely sensitive person especially when it comes to Black pain. I was expecting this to be a charmingly haunted escape but I was watching someone die and have the white people who killed him be extremely heartless and crass about it. All while I was reading this and thinking about how Trayvon Martin would have been 26 yesterday. 

After my break, I then began to make the connections between Lovecraft and this story. I think I've read one thing by Lovecraft but I feel like I know him inside and out because so many people write like him. I started off by listening to Peter Cline's 14 (years ago... Highly recommend) and the subsequent books that go with that series. 

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff and the subsequent HBO show was EVERYTHING. I could see the Lovecraftian fingerprints starting to show up in this story and I was glad to have picked it back up because while gruesome and while we should want peace and we should all want to come together I was happy that Black Tom (who Tommy becomes ) got those terrible people back who brought such horror upon him.
 
I'm sorry to say that but I spent the first half of this story being infuriated by the all the little injustices Tommy had to go through. From being questioned about where he was going (that hasn't canged because we see that all the time now via video) to being told he wasn't allowed in Queens or other parts of the city, being talked about as if he wasn't there, being degraded right in front of him and seeing people still do the same things to this day and how nothing is changed. So I got the catharsis (kind of like I did from the end of Django Unchained) in the end. 

If you are into concise well written Cosmic horror with black people this is the book for you

I read this via audiobook. Kevin R. Free was a masterful narrator!!! He gets six stars out of five! He was very he was very good at differentiating between all the characters and keeping you engaged even when he was just reading the story as the overall narrator (not in character).

B. K.

4.5 stars. Unsettling, memorable. The ending lost me a bit, as I'm not sure I fully got it, but overall this was a solid bit of horror. Typically great audiobook narration by Kevin R. Free.

Anastaciya

It's a good one. The moment with Tommy's father... ooph, that broke my heart.

Kelsey Holtaway

Whoa. “You can’t choose blindness when it suits you” 

First and foremost, the prose of this book is on another level. It’s lyrical and flowing, and i highly recommend listening to this on audiobook. 

Second but not second- the concept for this is just...Galaxy brain. There were parts i felt like i couldn’t wrap my mind around that were SO COOL. It made me want an authors commentary like how they do director’s commentaries for movies. 

If you liked CITY WE BECAME you’ll like this.

Laura Springall

I feel like I would have liked this a lot more if I hadn’t listened to it as an audiobook, for several reasons

First of all, this is the same narrator who does the Murderbot Diaries books, which is a very funny, sarcastic, conversational series about a potentially murderous robot who just wants to be left alone to watch cheesy soap operas for the rest of eternity. I love this narrator, I think he’s incredibly talented. But because I’m used to him as Murderbot, it was very jarring to hear him in a darker horror setting. The entire book I found myself waiting for the punchline or some sarcastic remark, and had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t going to happen lol

I also found the plot difficult to follow on audio because of the kind of story it is. If I had been able to physically see the words I might have been able to grasp it better. Instead I was constantly confused, having to rewind the audiobook because I thought I’d missed something even though I hadn’t. I’m not sure if that’s because I just wasn’t retaining the information, or if it’s just a confusing book. But either way, I’m still not entirely sure I fully understood what I just read

On the positive side, the characters and the atmosphere was fantastic! LaValle did an incredible job at making me feel throughly creeped out during certain scenes, and I’m very glad I didn’t read this in a dark room 😂 the characters were dynamic and interesting to read about, and I felt like I actually got to know them fairly well despite this being a novella

Overall not my favourite book, but it was still enjoyable and a great way to kick off the start of the Halloween season!

Heather

As a fan lovecraftian stories, this read was addictive, fast-paced and dark.
A tormented and discriminated main protagonist driven to become to worst part of himself.
Loved it, looking forward to read more from Victor LaValle.

Ben Nathan

Cool idea that was well executed. I didn't feel the need for more than there was, but I definitely enjoyed what there was. It was all very good. Just that little bit of (existential) horror, plus a version of Lovecraft that isn't terrible in racist ways.

 Bruna Acioly Leão

I don't really know much about Lovecraft, nor am I interested in reading him, knowing all the racist stuff immersed in his work, but I did like the idea that this was a story that subverted that. LaValle took Lovecraft's story and made it about the black character. 

That is an important context since this story is basically a retelling of Lovecraft's "The Horror of Red Hook", but it is not necessary to have any knowledge of that going into this story.

We follow Thomas Tester, a young man trying to make a living and help his father by doing odd jobs here and there. Some would call him a conman, but he thinks of himself as just a hustler, who knows not to mess with the odd supernatural stuff going on around New York. It is when he meets Robert Suydam, a rich man determined to wake a sleeping king. He also crosses paths with police officer detective Malone, who is investigating what is happening in Suydam's mysterious dealings.

While I enjoyed LaValle's writing and am interested in reading more from him in the future, this particular story's plot didn't captivate me so much. Thomas character made up for most of it, as did the writing, but the whole mythology going on just flew over my head. It might warrant a re-read and maybe with my actual eyes, other than via audiobook as I originally experienced this, and I could maybe appreciate it more.

The Ballad of Black Tom

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