Victor LaValle

"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.

The Ballad of Black Tom

Ang 

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

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

"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."

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. 

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