The Ballad of Black Tom (2016)
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?
By Victor LaValle
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Victor LaValle is the author of a short-story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus, three novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine & The Devil in Silver, and two novellas, Lucretia and the Kroons and The Ballad of Black Tom. His most recent book, The Ballad of Black Tom is a retelling of an H.P. Lovecraft story–“The Horror at Red Hook.” The Ballad of Black Tom is both a love letter to Lovercraft and a long overdue corrective to the famous author’s racism. Also, it’s one hell of a good time.
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