The Ballad of Black Tom (Victor LaValle)

The Ballad of Black Tom
Victor LaValle
Tor.com
Fiction, Fantasy/Historical Fiction/Horror
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: 1924 New York City isn't a good place to be a Negro, especially outside Harlem. After watching hard, honest work kill his mother in her thirties and leave his father a broken shell by his forties, Charles Thomas Tester decides only a fool or a sucker would even try to be honest. Instead, he uses his guitar and an innate sensitivity to the arcane to earn a living as a street hustler, specializing in cons just to the side of the everyday. He thought he'd found an easy mark in Robert Suydam, a wealthy white man with an unhealthy interest in the occult... but what should be a simple job may well cost Tester in ways he can't comprehend - and cost the world even more.

REVIEW: LaValle starts with the ugly racism of New York City in Prohibition and weaves in a layer of Lovecraftian horror, then places Tester in an ultimately-untenable situation. He starts out with good enough intentions, taking a secret pleasure in subtly sabotaging his errands for unscrupulous sorcerers and less savory clients, but Suydam's talk of elder gods and recreating the world taps into wells of rage in himself he didn't even know existed, and presents options he had never considered. While I understand what LaValle was going for, ultimately horror - particularly Lovecraftian horror, which many readers and writers evidently adore - isn't my cup of cocoa, costing it a half-star for a drawn-out, gruesome climax. I do give it marks for memorable imagery that gives tangible form to prejudices that continue to warp our national psyche and express themselves in horrific ways.

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