The Ballad of Black Tom
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read, Open EPUB eBook)

Victor LaValle. (2016). The Ballad of Black Tom. Tor Publishing Group.

Victor LaValle. 2016. The Ballad of Black Tom. Tor Publishing Group.

Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom. Tor Publishing Group, 2016.

Victor LaValle. The Ballad of Black Tom. Tor Publishing Group, 2016.

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The Ballad of Black Tom

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keywords

1. • value: retelling
2. • value: racism
3. • value: Cthulhu Mythos
4. • value: speculative fiction
5. • value: Genre
6. • value: creepy
7. • value: 1930s
8. • value: Dark Fantasy
9. • value: new york city
10. • value: Spooky
11. • value: black writers
12. • value: African American authors
13. • value: antiracist
14. • value: Lovecraftian horror
15. • value: urban fantasy novella
16. • value: shirley jackson award winner

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: LaValle, Victor
   • bioText: Victor LaValle is the author of more than ten works of fiction and graphic novels, including the multi-award-winning novel, The Changeling. His books have won the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, Dragon Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award, among many others. He has been a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Whiting Writers Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He teaches writing at Columbia University and lives with his wife and kids in the Bronx.
   • name: Victor LaValle

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2016-02-16T00:00:00-05:00

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title

The Ballad of Black Tom

fullDescription

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.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: The New York Times Book Review
   • content:

     "Full of rage and passion."

2. • premium: False
   • source: People
   • content: "This ingenious recasting of an H.P. Lovecraft classic is as creepy as it is thought-provoking."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly
   • content: "Shirley Jackson Award–winner LaValle 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."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Locus
   • content: "LaValle's ingenious project involves co-opting Lovecraft's epic-scale paranoia into the service of a trickster tale."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Electric Literature
   • content: "Whether The Ballad of Black Tom is approached as a straightforward tale of horror in the early 20th century or as a metafictional commentary on Lovecraft's own storytelling choices and racism, it succeeds. It also stands as proof that the process of engaging with the conflicted feelings that the work of Lovecraft can prompt can lead to rewarding, emotionally compelling writing of its own."
6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     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.

7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     February 15, 2016
     

     Charles Thomas Tester is not a very good musician, but he can fake it well enough to make a rough living hustling on the streets of Prohibition-era New York. He takes a job at the home of Robert Suydam, a wealthy man from Red Hook, only to find Sudyam's occult ambitions involve opening a portal to other dimensions and summoning the Sleeping King to Earth. VERDICT LaValle (The Devil in Silver) crafts a gem of a Lovecraftian novella, cleverly keeping his horrors just offstage. The real power of the story is Tom's experiences of prejudice as a black man living in early 20th-century Harlem, and how he overcomes and subverts that prejudice, taking on whatever role he has to in order to get by: he is "Charles" to his father, "Tommy" to his friends, and eventually "Black Tom"--one to be feared.--MM

     Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity

916

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   • name: English

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1. • value: Fantasy
2. • value: Fiction
3. • value: Horror

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shortDescription

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...

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awards

1. • source: Horror Writers Association
   • value: Bram Stoker Award Nominee
2. • source: World Science Fiction Society
   • value: Hugo Award Nominee

publisher

Tor Publishing Group

bisacCodes

1. • code: FIC009070
   • description: Fiction / Fantasy / Dark Fantasy
2. • code: FIC015000
   • description: Fiction / Horror