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The Ballad Of Black Tom Victor Lavalle 9780765387868 Books

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The Ballad Of Black Tom Victor Lavalle 9780765387868 Books

I enjoyed "The Ballad of Black Tom" very much. Having read one of Mr. LaValle's other books, "The Devil In Silver" I was a little hesitant at first because I felt "The Devil In Silver" didn't live up to its beginning. However, "The Ballad of Black Tom", was quite satisfying.
I would read a sequel with the same character.


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The Ballad Of Black Tom Victor Lavalle 9780765387868 Books Reviews

From Victor’s opening dedication, “For HP Lovecraft, with all my conflicted feelings,” you know it’s going to be a challenging read. Lovecraft created a mythos as rich as any mythology, yet was a terrible racist and often put immigrants, indigenes, and people of any color not purely European-Caucasian as the baleful yet subservient subjugates of monsters out of time. Only the learned white man could face down these unimaginable terrors, and even still, they would go mad as well. Maybe Lovecraft hated everyone. As for The Ballad of Black Tom, we get a Lovecraft story from the point of view of the lowly and loathed...of that time. Victor writes in a language lifted straight from the early 20th century, with all its negative connotations, yet tells a story at a clip more in keeping with our 21st century attention spans. Still, it remains in that vaudevillian tempo that ushers you from character moments to set dressings to hideous reveals in the space of a sentence. Victor has mastered the Supreme Alphabet indeed, wrestled it out of the clutches of a dreadful spirit, and told a story that Lovecraft and Lovecraft fans both could enjoy. Time has given us the benefit of being able to enjoy the art of madmen, to separate their creations from them themselves. Victor reminds us here, though, that the grotesque underbelly shall always remain, but heroes can still rise from the muck and mire and say that they are integral regardless of the artist’s intent. It is by the grace of the Great Old Ones that we live and die, no matter what we look like or who we associate with, but be sure to treat everyone with at least a little dignity...you never know who might have what’s ear.
Is it possible for a story to get under your skin and inhabit your body? Because I think that's what happened here.

The story begins with us firmly planted in the reality of New York in the 1920s. We meet Charles Thomas Tester, a black man trying to make a living in a white-dominated city. The author puts us right there so that we feel the racism and the police brutality. The setting and the circumstances are masterfully handled.

Then, when we're comfortable in this setting, we're gradually nudged into the abyss. Because we started from such a real place, the supernatural aspects feel all the more possible and all the more unnerving.

This short novel has surprising potency.
Review of BALLAD OF BLACK TOM by Victor LaValle

I read this incredible, exceptional novella in one sitting, following a Goodreads friend's recommendation in conjunction with his review of Matt Huff' s LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, which I had just finished the day before. I connected my reading of LOVECRAFT COUNTRY with my perusal of BALLAD OF BLACK TOM by reading H. P. Lovecraft' s DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE in between. Both LOVECRAFT COUNTRY and BALLAD OF BLACK TOM vivify ingrained American racism in the 20th century the first setting in the historically idealized peacetime of the mid 1950's, post Korean War, and the second, in 1924 New York City. BALLAD OF BLACK TOM also reveals America's entrenched anti-immigration fury {an apropos reading indeed}. HPL' s "DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE" also vivifies ethnic bigotry in 1931, mostly against poor or working class immigrants {but unlike the other two books, the author is not reviling, but is likely expressing his own entrenched and unexamined belief}.

BALLAD OF BLACK TOM relates the tale of a young black man in Harlem, an untalented street musician of sorts {oh, shades of Robert Johnson} and rather gifted hustler. But the novella is so much more than history it is urban fantasy and magical realism, hubris and ego and otherworldly entities. It is simply perfect, and a day later I am still awestruck and speechless. In the words of Tom Petty' s stunning "Mary Jane's Last Dance" "oh my my. Oh h*** yeah."
Oh my, my, indeed.
In 1925 H.P. Lovecraft published a story titled, THE HORROR AT RED HOOK. In it, a detective by the name of Malone investigates strange goings-on in the largely immigrant populated section of New York City, Red Hook. The story takes place in Lovecraft’s familiar universe of cosmic horror, always subject to the return of the Old Ones.

Now, it is no secret that Lovecraft held strong feelings about certain minority and immigrant groups, and THE HORROR AT RED HOOK is often singled out as the most egregious example. Because of this, there are some today that would prefer to banish Lovecraft’s entire body of work to the scrap heap because of it. I don’t happen to share that view. Lovecraft was a strange man, for certain, but a man of his time. A better response is what author Victor Lavalle has done. A black author of weird fiction, Lavalle has taken Lovecraft’s tale and reworked it from another viewpoint, the viewpoint of black would-be street-troubadour Charles Thomas Tester who plays a pivotal role in the unearthly happenings in the tenements of Robert Suydam, in the summoning of The Sleeping King.

THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM is a wonderful novella, and I would strongly suggest reading Lovecraft’s story first, to set the scene, and to better appreciate how Lavalle has returned us to Lovecraft’s imperfect world. There are a few truly horrifying scenes to be had.
I enjoyed "The Ballad of Black Tom" very much. Having read one of Mr. LaValle's other books, "The Devil In Silver" I was a little hesitant at first because I felt "The Devil In Silver" didn't live up to its beginning. However, "The Ballad of Black Tom", was quite satisfying.
I would read a sequel with the same character.