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 … 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
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Lovecraftian fiction that works on so many levels.
Victor LaValle repurposes H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook” brilliantly by changing the perspective to a black man’s. This fellow, one Charles Thomas Tester, has a knack for disguise, which is helpful for a black man in 1920’s New York. Racism is ever-present in this piece, but LaValle handles it beautifully, allowing the injustice to feed Black Tom’s anger. In this story we see the Sleeping King Under the Ocean himself, bilk a sorceress, and perhaps meet H.P. Lovecraft himself. This novella has a huge heart, but it also has teeth, talons, and tentacles, and there is horror to satisfy even the most seasoned horror reader. The Ballad of Black Tom has earned several awards, and after reading it, I applaud its brilliance.
“For H.P. Lovecraft, with all my conflicted feelings.”
I got this ebook a while back, when Tor had it as a free ebook of the month. I added it to my long list of books on my TBR and it slowly made its way up the list as I made my way through them.
I think I’ve done a decent job of reading diversely. I know for a fact I read A LOT of Women Horror authors, that has always been something I strive to do. But POC authors? Probably not good enough.
I will readily and unashamedly admit, I bumped this from 15th on my TBR list (yes, I have my books ordered and numbered!) to start reading this after the horrific and world changing events of George Floyd. As the Horror community rallied around our fellow POC authors and people shared photos and stacks of books to read by them (myself included) I knew I needed to do more than just share a photo.
‘The Ballad of Black Tom’ accomplishes a rare feat. We in the Horror world know just how horrible of a person HP Lovecraft was. There is a big disconnect between the mythos he created and the human he was. I remember reading some Lovecraft growing up and rereading some recently, and while I enjoy his worlds, I hate his writing. I struggle to get into it and I drop interest quickly.
Thankfully, there are a number of authors who write within that mythos incredibly well and whose writing I enjoy! So, I can get my weird gods fix and enjoy those books.
Victor LaValle, from what I’ve read online, grew up reading Lovecraft, but as a person of color, when he discovered Lovecraft’s views, he was conflicted. Like many people, he looked past the views and focused on the writing.
But then at some point, LaValle decided to take back some of Lovecraft’s mythos and make it his own, and much like the epigraph that starts this book (which I shared at the top) LaValle dove in.
What I liked: ‘The Ballad of Black Tom’ starts off by following Tommy Tester, a black man in New York at the start of the 19th Century. He is chosen by a rich man to come perform at his mansion and from there the reader gets introduced to some of the great Old Ones.
I’ve seen a few reviews state this and I’ll echo it – LaValle does Lovecraft better than Lovecraft ever did. There are some scenes in here that are completely unnerving and will creep you right out. The character of Ma Att is one such entity that will grab you and make you want to shower after you read a few of her moments.
The second part of the book follows Malone, a detective. This worked really well to see the subtle nods between the first and second half of the book, but also to understand the glamour or shimmer that the Secret Alphabet has placed on those outside of the inner circle.
What I didn’t like: While LaValle does Lovecraft amazingly, I personally wished there was just a bit more creatures featured. We get some great descriptions, but I wanted to see so much more!
Why you should buy it: LaValle writes with such efficient prose that this book hummed along. The characters and events are engaging and the use of the Old Ones was perfect. This would have been an easy one-sitting read if I didn’t have 6 other books on the go! Saying all of that, now is a time for us to support and read more diverse authors and LaValle is one of the masters of the genre. I have ‘The Changeling” from his as well, which I will be pushing up my TBR asap.
This was a stunning piece and I loved every second of it.
I read this based on a few friend recommendations as well as he mention of it in the excellent “Lovecraft Country” novel. Not sure why it took me so long to read this, because I couldn’t put it down. The characters are intriguing, not always what they seem, and the world is so rich and full. Awful and racist and real, too. An amazing book.
This was a new take on horror with a very Lovecraftian feel. I was pulled into the protagonist’s world of music, magic, and racial tension in equal measure. Very well done, and a pleasant discovery.
Just too strange for my taste.
I’ve always loved the Cthulhu Mythos created by HP Lovecraft, but let’s face it, the author was a racist and some of his work is particularly egregious in that regard.
It’s intriguing then to see Victor LaValle take that work and turn it on its head, making it an examination of the racism of the time as much as an exploration of the cosmic terrors just a blink away from our world.
Charles Thomas Tester is a hustler, trying to get enough money to feed himself and his dad, who got used up and cast on the junk heap by the job he gave his youth to. Tommy tries whatever he can to get ahead in a time when black men aren’t allowed to get ahead. That means dealing with racist cops and a society where he has to protect himself every single day. Then he gets a gig offer for a job that pays far too much to be safe, and too much to turn down whatever the risk. It opens the door to a world of darkness, and in Tommy tumbles.
This is a book of two halves, the first told from Tommy’s perspective, the second from an investigator hot on the heels of the legendary Black Tom and his employer. It’s also a retelling of Lovecraft’s Horror of Red Hook, one of the most racist of Lovecraft’s stories.
It poses tough questions, and shows why someone would choose to tear down a society that offers no place for them.
My only wish is that it was longer. I wanted to spend more time with Tommy in the first half, to get to know him better before the dominoes of his world started tumbling into one another.
In the end, it shows the evils of this world as strongly as the evils of the cosmos, laying one against the other in an invitation to say which is worse.
It’s a delight to see Lovecraft’s work getting this kind of reinvention – alongside the likes of Lovecraft Country on television, and Premee Mohamed’s Beneath The Rising in print. Cosmic horror has never been fresher.
It’s short but has an impact.
This book was amazing! Charles Thomas Tester was such a well developed character. The story had me at the edge of my seat. The transformation of Charles Thomas Tester into Black Tom will have you rooting for him but at the same time terrified and sadden by it. It was such a good novel. Victor Lavelle really one upped the genre. If you are a fan of Lovecraft then you should read this. The novel is well written and leaves you wanting more!
I thought this book would have more of a fear factor, but it didn’t. It’s nothing like the book description. Very disappointed.
This will send a shiver down your spine. Excellent storytelling and an amazing tale.
4.5 stars.
THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM is the first I have read from author Victor Lavalle. To say I was impressed would be an understatement. His writing paints such vivid pictures that I won’t soon forget.
“. . . Becoming unremarkable, invisible, compliant–these were useful tricks fo a black man in an all-white neighborhood . . . ”
Charles Tommy Tester may have been a minor hustler, but he supported his widowed father, and had the intelligence to steer clear from the most dangerous situations. He knew the art of “blending in” to avoid scrutiny, and did only what he felt he had to.
“. .. . A good hustler isn’t curious . . . ”
However, 1920’s Brooklyn wasn’t the best time to be a black person–especially if those higher up decided to take note of you.
“. . . Skirt the rules but don’t break them.”
The author takes a Lovecraft story, “The Horror At Red Hook”, and re-makes it into something completely his own. The characterization is top-notch, and I found myself “feeling” along with Tommy as events in his life took a drastic turn.
“. . . Nobody ever thinks of himself as the villain, does he? . . .”
The supernatural and human elements blended so well here that it was impossible NOT to see it as a “natural progression”. This story made me FEEL, and that is what kept me entranced to the very end.
“. . . finding myself unsympathized with . . .”
Overall, I loved the author’s style, his unflinching details, and his all too realistic characters. In a story like this, I wanted to suspend any disbelief, and just be taken away by the written words.
“. . . To learn we simply do not matter to the players at all . . .”
I will definitely be reading more from this author in the near future.
Highly recommended.
“Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he?
Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves.”
― Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom
This novella by Victor Lavalle just might be the consummate weird tale. The Ballad of Black Tom is a reimagining of Lovecraft’s “Horror at Red Hook.” Tommy Tester is a young black man trying to take care of his father in 1924 Harlem. He does what is necessary to earn his living, but when he’s hired to deliver a mysterious book to an equally mysterious woman, a series of events are set in motion.
In prose as smooth as jazz and dark as midnight, Lavalle conveys dual horrors. In this brilliant tale, the horror of the dread Master of R’lyeh coexists with the horror of racism and I’m not sure which is worse. Near the conclusion, after the die has been cast, Tom observes, “I’ll take Cthulhu over you devils any day.”
And who can blame him?
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
In his house at R’lyeh dead C’thulhu waits dreaming.
THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM is a novella remake/sequel to H.P. Lovecraft’s supremely racist story THE HORROR OF RED HOOK. The original story is about a white man who meddles with foreigners and their magic too much, only to be consumed by it. It’s not one of Lovecraft’s better regarded works and frankly surprising that anyone would want to do a remake. However, Victor Lavalle takes the original story and switches perspectives from a racist police officer to an untalented street hustler/failed musician named Charles Tester.
Charles Tester just wants to make enough money to support his family and can do that by appealing to white people who don’t know anything about music. He also sells magical books, slightly damaged to uselessness, as part of his hustle. Unfortunately, his activities draw the attention of millionaire Robert Suydam as well as corrupt police officer Malone plus his private detective associate. He soon finds himself tempted by the all-powerful magic available in Lovecraftian tomes as well as their promise to destroy an unjust world.
I really enjoyed this book and Victor Lavalle knows the most horrifying thing in the world is less giant squid monsters than the fact there’s no one to turn to when police rob you then gun down someone close. Half the book is actually from Officer Malone’s perspective and it is an ugly sad place to be be. It also puts a new perspective on Lovecraft’s original sympathetic take on the character. I think the ending was also extremely powerful and one that reminds the reader that simple humanity may be more important in an arcane unforgiving world, not less.
10/10
Cosmic Horror Writ Small
One of the problems I’ve found with the cosmic horror genre is the general length it takes to get to the payoff.
There is usually some legend – the Seven Headed Washerwoman, the Handed Serpent, or something like that – and then a few hundred pages later, they find it. They open the door, it’s something atrocious, and that is it.
They are not bad tales, but they take time to get to the legend they hold.
Victor LaValle overcomes this with The Ballad of Black Tom by bringing his tale in the form of a novella. Coming in at a hundred some odd pages, you are never more than a hundred some odd pages from the payoff.
And another interesting thing is the time – 1920s New York
We’re accustomed to tales of the oppression of old, but 1920s New York is a different time entirely.
This was not an age of the struggle for civil rights, it was a time when civil rights weren’t even a concept.
Thomas Tester walks into the wrong neighborhood? He might not make it back. Police come into his place? They can do whatever they want, and still bring him into jail, and no one will do anything to help him.
Those forces cause Thomas Tester to become Black Tom, a man without a soul, a man who does some things a protagonist should not do.
But in short – read this whether you are a fan of cosmic horror or not
It’s a great tale, and a lot of fun!
Loved this one. It’s not very long but great story.
This is a must-read for fans of intelligent cosmic horror! It’s a fabulous novella. The narrative is very much in a dialog with (and functions as a razor-sharp rebuttal to) H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Horror at Red Hook.” Narratively, this is a re-telling and very smart expansion of Lovecraft’s story and tells the tale of Tom Tester, who at the start of the book aspires to be an entertainer but quickly gets swept up in eldritch horrors.
Okay, admittedly, as a fan of classic blues, period pieces, and urban fantasy & horror, I was pretty much guaranteed to be a sucker for this one. Add in that it’s an alternate take on H.P Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook,” subverting Lovecraft’s racism (which is blatantly on display in “Red Hook”) and giving us a black protagonist, providing the writing wasn’t awful, you’ve pretty much sealed the deal. Fortunately, the writing is absolutely stellar, the characters fascinating, and it’s overall a much better story than the original it’s riffing off.
I’ll admit, I’m not a Lovecraft fan. Even when he wasn’t obviously trying make non-whites as scary as his Great Old Ones, in my opinion he just wasn’t a very good writer. Besides displaying Lovecraft’s racism front and center, “The Horror at Red Hook” is actually a pretty lame story. It’s entirely narrative exposition. There’s no dialogue to speak of, and Lovecraft tells rather than shows everything. Even his main characters are stereotypical and one dimensional. It’s about as un-artful as anything of Lovecraft’s I’ve ever read.
In The Ballad of Black Tom, the two or three of Lovecraft’s characters who appear are rounded out wonderfully, turned from the cardboard cutouts old H.P. presents into actual believable human beings. Instead of rambling meditations on the New York neighborhood of Red Hook as “tangle of material and spiritual putrescence,” we get a vivid evocation of 1930s New York, from Harlem to Queens to Brooklyn.
But LaValle doesn’t just re-tell “The Horror at Red Hook” from another perspective – he’s telling another story entirely, one which only ties in to Lovecraft’s tale about halfway through, proceeds to present an alternative interpretation of it, and then go beyond it. It’s probably unfair of me to focus so much on the contrasts between “Red Hook” and “Black Tom.” There’s no need to read the former to appreciate the latter. LaValle’s novella absolutely stands on its own as a sterling bit of storytelling, well worth your time.