The Ballad of Black Tom

This was a fantastic story, both as a creepy horror story and as a look at institutionalized racism. LaValle takes the tropes and elements of traditional weird horror and looks at them from the perspective of outsiders. Throughout the novella, he contrasts the corrupt, racist environment of 1920s New York, and the threat of impending doom on the part of the Deep Old Ones. As the injustices pile on, he starts to see less of a distinction between the two.

LaValle is reimagining an old Lovecraft story in this novella, so the endgame of the characters are a bit of a fixed point for him. However, he manages to work in and around that framework in such a way that the end result stands alone as a great example of what a modern horror story is capable of.