vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

Have you read...

note: If you did not finish but feel you read enough to form an opinion, you may choose a ‘Yes’ option instead of 'Partly' (e.g., Yes, I didn’t like it). Interpret "neutral or complicated" however you like, I intended this category to be a broad option between like and dislike.

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?

submit a horror book!

Contemporary Lovecraftian fiction

Lovecraft is kind of fascinating to me, and while I've read about the amount of the purple-prosed early 20th-century neuroticism with occasionally striking levels of racism just kinda tucked in there, I'm still very interested in the legacy of his works though. Not so much the mainstream Lovecraft Aesthetic, with its fishermen who have seen Entirely Too Much and academic twinks way over their heads, although it is an excellent look to be sure. The stories with a Lovecraft influence that I really like are the ones that I suspect Ol' Howard P would like the least, which is to say the queerest and/or minority-centric ones.

There are a surprising amount of these stories, and in this here post I'm going to talk at y'all about some of them and cool stuff I think they did. Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff is probably the biggest example and one of the first ones I came across. It contrasts the large unknowable terrors of æons lost with the sadly much more comprehensible, but still unmanageably large problem of racism and discrimination. It has the effect that most Lovecraftian elements our heroes discover end up being more things of mild peril and some considerable wonder, an arena for possible empowerment as well as for possibly having your face eaten off by protoplasm.

The Ballad Of Black Tom by Victor LaValle has a similar approach, although it is perhaps a bit more cynical about it. LaValle seems to zero in on Lovecrafts ideas of nonwhite people being particularly susceptible to the pull of the various eldritch gods, and explain it more as a consequence of sociopolitical factors. The titular character basically tells the white person stand-in that since we couldn't behave, the eldritch lord Cthulhu is going to kick everyone's ass with global warming, which does certainly feel like a more terrifying prospect than many other of the squidlord's exploits to a modern reader.

Lovecraftian settings, it should not surprise you to learn, have also been used to explore queer themes. The Worm And His Kings by Hailey Piper deals with themes of transformation, identity, and agency, but also manages to be the most decidedly agnostic Lovecraft-inspired text I've read. It could be that the cult that traps our reluctant heroine is worshipping an extradimensional god-creature that is going to immanentize the gooey eschaton, or it could also be that they're a bunch of privileged pricks that reify and anthropomorphize a glitch in the workings of the universe.

My most recent find, The Outside, uses the more general idea of the incomprehensible underpinnings of the universe, and some tentacles, to explore neurodiversity and how society treats the neurodivergent. Having a brain that processes information and stimuli in a nonstandard way, in this setting, may also help you do the borderline impossible math that's required to communicate with Things Beyond. The book also has a very Black Tom-esque "You've treated us, and me in particular, like shit, so now you get tentacle doom and inconvenience" vibe to it. It's also decently gay, so that's nice.

This ended up being a bit less thorough than I had hoped to make it, but it was either that or writing entirely too much about all of these books. They're all worth a read, and if anyone has other suggestions in line with these, I'd love to hear about them.

"I bear a hell within me," Black Tom growled. "And finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin." "You're a monster, then," Malone said. "I was made one."

― The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle is a exciting novella charged with anger and dread. A man is studying ancient texts with perhaps devastating, malicious consequences, and he's trying to pull hustler Charles Thomas Tester into his scheme. At first, Tommy is tempted to resist. But in a world where a person can be shot by police in their bed and the answer is indifference, Tommy decides malice might not be a bad idea.

An adaptation in conversation with HP Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook," it takes eldritch horrors and adds in the dread of people of color in a systemic realm of white supremacy and violence, and the anger of one man rising in response to it. It's a quick, eerie, bloody, satisfying read.

Content warnings for body horror, racism, racist slurs, and police brutality.

People who move to New York always make the same mistake. They can’t see the place. This is true of Manhattan, but even the outer boroughs, too, be it Flushing Meadows in Queens or Red Hook in Brooklyn. They come looking for magic, whether evil or good, and nothing will convince them it isn’t here. This wasn’t all bad, though. Some New Yorkers had learned how to make a living from this error in thinking. —Victor LaValle/The Ballad of Black Tom

victor lavalle’s subversion of cosmic horror knocked my socks clean off

Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff

My third attempt to read this book. I don't know why, because I've enjoyed it each time I've tried to read it. It's not the most amazing book by any means, but I love the characters Atticus Turner and Letitia and Ruby Dandridge. I think that books like The Ballad of Black Tom better take the topic of Lovecraft's racism and take it back for African-Americans. I think that story is better written. I sort of wonder if Ruff used Lovecraft name for sales and attention. Here, you pretty much could pick any horror/sci-fi/fantasy author from that time period and get similar results, Lovecraft was just more pronounced in his racism, but Lovecraft's racism doesn't have a lot to do with this particular series of stories. When it touched on Lovecraft subjects I think is when I liked it the most. No surprise there for me, since I enjoy Lovecraft's story ideas. For me, when this book was led by the female characters (Dreams of the Which House/Jekyll in Hyde Park) were when it was the strongest for me and I really loved those sections of the book. Give me a full length novel with Letitia and Ruby and I'd be stoked to read that. As a whole, a series of stories, it was up and down for me. It wasn't ever bad, even at its worst I think Ruff is a talented author, just some of the stories didn't grab me as hard as others.

3/5

Currently reading: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

About 3/4 of the way through and all I can really think is you shouldn't mess with things you know nothing about. Especially things that lurk in the shadows. But that's what Charles Thomas Tester has done and he's paying the price for it now. But can you blame him when you see how the world treats a Black man in Harlem in the early 1900s? Or at anytime really?

This book feels both ancient, relevant, and current. No matter when or how you read, there is something to take...hopefully it won't take much in return.

[Spoilers for Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom]

I’m in that headspace after reading a good book where I’m just thinking about Tommy, thinking about his father, thinking about Malone, thinking about Cthulhu. How I knew that of course Tommy would kill Suydam and possibly Malone but wasn’t sure if he would release Cthulhu. How it was his love of his father, the deaths of his parents, the larger insults of him as a human being that pushed him over the edge— but all initiated by Malone unloading eleven bullets, firing and loading and firing through the rounds again into Otis and then Tommy being accused of not caring for slowly falling apart internally and finding no relief from anyone. Just sitting here. And he had a moment of clarity at the end to realize that he was dooming Harlem with Brooklyn and Queens and the world— that Harlem was a part of the world— but he had been unable to talk about what happened to his father, so his friend didn’t know and unknowingly pushed him back to Suydam. And I can sit and think about how the story might have changed, or might not have changed at all, if Buckeye had known Otis had been killed and consoled his friend. Just thinking. But either way, whether a month or one hundred years, Cthulhu was awakened to flood the Earth because the “good” police officer killed his dad. Also, the dialogue was so freaking good. Just. ‘My father’s name was Otis. My mother’s name was Irene. Let me play you their favorite song.’ before playing conjure magic with a blues song. Crap. I mean, being a reader knowing Cthulhu being summoned was the worst ending for the world but was actively feeling vindictive for him. The relief when he is no longer human and cannot be killed. Spectacular post-Lovecraftian novella.

Book Review: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

Tommy is a hustler just taking care of himself and his dad in 1920s Harlem when an old white man invites him to play at his private shindig in his home. Summary: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…

View On WordPress

"But the lesson Tommy Tester learned instead was that you better have a way to make your own money because this world wasn’t trying to make a Negro rich." - The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle.

“But comfort can be a cage, you know? Certainly it can stunt the mind.”

— Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom

The Ballad of Black Tom (a book review)

started: 6.20.23 finished: 6.21.23

I started this book at 9pm last night and finished it this morning. This is a really short book, that I don't even know if I have words to describe. It's a retelling of H.P. Lovecrafts "The Horror of Red Hook". I haven't read much of anything from Lovecraft, but I loved the way The Ballad of Black Tom was written. It kept me engaged, I felt angry at times, i gasped at times, audibly said "oh no" multiple times. Very enjoyable read! 4/5 stars!

Book for November 2022

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

Chosen by Kevin!

When: Tuesday November 29th, 7pm

Where: The Cumberland Bar, 1-3 Cumberland Street

If you would like to join us to discuss the book, send an email to the address on the home page, or send us an ask!