| The Ballad of Black Tom | |
| Author: | Victor LaValle |
| Cover Artist: | Robert Hunt |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Pages: | 149 |
| Genre: | Horror, Historical fantasy |
| Publisher: | Tor.com |
| Pub Date: | February 16, 2016 |
The Ballad of Black Tom is a 2016 fantasy-horror novella by Victor LaValle, revisiting H. P. Lovecraft's story "The Horror at Red Hook" from the viewpoint of a black man.
In 1924 Harlem, Tommy Tester is a small-time hustler whose regular guise as a street musician brings him in contact with reclusive millionaire Robert Suydam, who wants him to participate in a nefarious scheme involving the Great Old Ones. Among the tools that Tester uses to thwart the scheme is the Supreme Alphabet of the Five-Percent Nation.
"The Ballad of Black Tom" won the 2016 Shirley Jackson Award for best novella,[1] and was a finalist for the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction,[2] the Nebula Award for Best Novella of 2016,[3] the 2017 British Fantasy Award for best novella,[4] the 2017 Theodore Sturgeon Award,[5] the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novella,[6] and the 2017 World Fantasy Award—Long Fiction.[7]
Slate called it "riveting", "clever", and "compelling", and noted LaValle's comparison of "cosmic indifference" to targeted racist malice and brutality.[8] Vice described it as "tightly written, beautifully creepy, and politically resonant", and emphasized that despite its nature as a literary "rebuttal", it is still "a thrilling Lovecraftian tale of mystery, monsters, and madness".[9]
Nina Allan commended LaValle for "making (...) 'The Horror at Red Hook' (into) an actual story (...) featuring real characters with real motivations – a claim that can not safely be made for the original tale", but observed that — when compared to the vivid "lunacy" of Lovecraft's writing — LaValle's prose is "grounded and sound in both mind and body" and ultimately "pedestrian".[10] Conversely, the Philadelphia Inquirer preferred LaValle's "sharp and direct sentences" to Lovecraft's "spongy prose".[11]
In 2017, AMC announced that it was planning a TV adaptation of The Ballad of Black Tom, with LaValle as co-executive producer.[12]
Victor LaValle interviewed on National Public Radio's Fresh Air