The Ballad of Black Tom ★★★★★

The Ballad of Black Tom (Click Here To Buy)

★★★★★

The Ballad of Back Tom by Victor LaValle is a novella about Black man who goes around the city with a guitar delivering goods and playing music until he’s approached by a rich white guy to play at a mysterious dinner party where he opens the door to another universe.

I bought this book from @booksaremagic when I visited New York this summer.

Tom lives in Harlem with his father, Otis, and makes money on the street to support them both after his mother passed a few years back. Tom’s parents lived a hard life - Otis is only in his 40s but 40 is the new 80 for a Black man in 1920s New York. One day, while playing music on the street, a white man, named Robert Suydam, says he will give him $400 to play at a dinner party. Tom later discovers an opening to “Outside” another universe where lies “The Sleeping King” Things only go South from there. Sometimes sadness and magic make evil.

This book is a retelling of The Horror at Red Hook by H. P. Lovecraft. I listened to Lovecraft’s short story before reading this novella - it was wildly racist in it’s depiction of minorities living in Red Hook and I’m glad LaValle took the story under his wing for a proper - and still Lovecraftinanly terrifying - retelling.

I have also read The Changeling, Big Machine, and The Devil in Silver by this author. The Changeling was my favorite book I read last year.

If you liked The Ballad of Back Tom, I also recommend A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark, My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones, Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, and Revival by Stephen King.

Happy reading 🐙

Ms.Bjork