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Title details for The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle - Available

The Ballad of Black Tom

by Victor LaValle
Kevin R. Free
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

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 black skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their trained cops. But when he delivers an occult page 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 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
"[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

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    February 16, 2016

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781427273802
      • File size: 91117 KB
      • Duration: 03:09:49

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 21, 2015
      Shirley Jackson Award–winner LaValle (The Devil in Silver) cleverly retcons H.P. Lovecraft’s infamous story “The Horror at Red Hook,” retelling it with a new protagonist (the titular Charles Thomas Tester, a splendidly Lovecraftian name) and a literary veneer that recalls Chester Himes. Tester, a con artist in 1924 Harlem with a minor awareness of the occult, occasionally masquerades as a street musician, playing the guitar (poorly) while pulling his hustles. When he’s approached by the eccentric Robert Suydam to play at a party, he knows something’s awry, but the money’s too good to pass up. Before his gig, he encounters a pair of detectives; one is Lovecraft’s original protagonist, Malone, and they both seem to know more about Suydam and Tester than would be expected. Once Tester goes to his gig, Malone takes over as the lead character, and LaValle ably conveys both the horrors he encounters and a reconciliation with the original text. The story adeptly addresses social and racial issues that were central to urban life at the dawn of the 20th century, with obvious resonances and parallels in the present. Those familiar with Lovecraft’s (weaker) story might get a little more from this novella, but it stands well on its own.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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