But once I understood that LaValle was trying to force his characters to follow–and yet subvert–the original, it made sense. The more I thought on it, the more dissatisfied I became I believed Tom’s somewhat easy-going con-man approach, the earnestness of his father, the fanaticism of the older white dude. It’s just that their personalities as the story evolved didn’t seem congruent. When I was pondering how what I would say in my review, I was thinking about characterization and trying to pinpoint if that was the problem, but it wasn’t, not really–the characters felt very real to me, well drawn at that moment in time. Set in New York City in the 1920s, it is apparently the author’s answer to a more than vaguely racist Lovecraft classic where he lamented all those immigrants in NYC.įor me, some transitions felt extremely choppy, and now that I read an analysis of the source material, my suspicion is that LaValle was hewing too closely to the original. Nominated for a Hugo, Nebula, and Shirley Jackson Awards,* The Ballad of Black Tom is a fine little novella, made accessible to horror dilettantes by the graciousness of Tor.com. I’ll still be recommending it to others, and am glad to see most people have enjoyed it more than I did.Read October 2018 Recommended for fans of Bloody folk tales ★ ★ ★ 1/2 But while I appreciated LaValle’s commentary, I couldn’t connect to the character’s or the story itself and had a difficult time feeling invested in the novella. I found myself absolutely horrified by one scene, only to immediately see how it is paralleled by stories in the news today. What I found myself most struck by was how some of the explicitly racist bits could have been pulled straight out of today’s world even though the story takes place some 100 years ago. Lovecraft himself is infamously racist, so LaValle’s retelling is a commentary on racism. This is a retelling of one of Lovecraft’s stories, which I have not read.
I buddy read this with Hadeer, who enjoyed it and wrote a much more thorough review than I did. I’ll take Cthulhu over you devils any day. Goodreads | IndieBound | Author’s Website
Published by Tor.com on February 16, 2016 The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
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