Victor LaValle is a pretty terrific horror writer whose books take the real-life horrors of racism and add monsters. The 2016 novella The Ballad of Black Tom is the third of his books that I’ve read, and they’ve all been enjoyably intense and weird.
I understand that this book is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, specifically “The Horror at Red Hook,” but I haven’t read enough Lovecraft (one story, years ago) to really appreciate the connection. I just appreciated that this book went all-in on the weird while maintaining its coherance.
Set in 1920s New York, the book opens with a street musician and hustler named Tommy Tester. After delivering an occultic book to a customer (ripping out the last page to keep her from using it), Tommy is invited to play his music for a wealthy white millionaire named Robert Suydam even though he’s not actually a very good musician. From there, it becomes clear that Robert is up to something, something involving forces beyond the world as we understand it, and he wants Tommy to get involved. Trying to uncover the plot is Detective Malone, who has seen enough to know that there’s more to the world than what is seen.
The book is both about fighting monsters and becoming a monster and the temptation to marshall one evil to fight another. I suppose that makes the book sound like a moralistic parable, but it doesn’t feel like that. Because it’s short, there’s not a lot of time to dwell on character motivations and crises of conscience. It just poses the problem: If monstrousness exists in many forms, who’s to say which one is the worst? And it does so with a satisfyingly creepy story, with some moments of truly gruesome horror.
It really is remarkable how the novel doesn’t moralize but does present situations that can make a reader understand why someone might do something that others would find monstrous. I reviewed it on March 7, 2016. If more people had read it then, perhaps history could have been different.
Yes! He does a fantastic job of being understanding of Tom’s choices without also making him a hero. He lets it be complicated.
This book has been sitting in my tbr for two years!! Why haven’t I read it yet?! So many people have liked it. Well.. I do have the shiny book addiction. Someday I will get to it.
I hear that! It had been on my ereader for a couple of years, but I did finally get to it.
What are the other two books you’ve read by this author? I own his book ‘The Ecstatic’ but I haven’t read it yet. :/
I’ve read The Changeling and The Devil in Silver. I haven’t looked into his others, but I will now.
I really did not like The Changeling. I think I might not be the audience for urban horror or urban fantasy even. But I will put this on my list. I usually like to give authors at least three strikes before I completely take them off my list.
The nice thing about this is that it’s really short, so even if you don’t enjoy it, you don’t have to spend much time with it.