The Ballad of Black Tom

I haven't read any Lovecraft. While he was an integral part of science fiction and fantasy, the knowledge of his racism made me feel like it wasn't really necessary to put him on the to-read list. Honestly, I don't hold a whole lot of reverence for the so-called classics. But its not like I've never held a love for a text or a work that in fact had a problematic creator or even had problematic undertones itself. So I understand why Victor LaValle wanted to revisit the mythos of Lovecraft, and somehow rectify the love he had for his work and the anger and frustration he felt for the man himself. And I think he did a brilliant job of transforming that frustration into The Ballad of Black Tom.

I like how this book is split up. The first half is the story of Tommy Tester, his family, how he's survived as a black man in 1920s Harlem, and how his world begins to unravel when he meets Robert Suydam, a wealthy man looking to conjure a powerful entity. Then there's the story of Black Tom - Tommy Tester awakened by the Sleeping King, blessed or cursed with unspeakable power - told from the perspective of Malone, a white New York City detective, a mild sensitive and amateur expert in the arcane. I think its a very clever thing that Malone is the sole sympathetic white man and still he suffers, because while I'm sure someone like Malone doesn't think his behavior could be perceived as neutral, it is. And to be neutral in the face of oppression is to be complicit. It doesn't matter that Malone doesn't look at Tommy, the black population of New York or the many immigrants he encounters as less than - it doesn't change the fact that he benefits from their marginalization. And Black Tom makes sure he knows it.

The Ballad of Black Tom is a simple, in moments sparse story. It has a purpose, and that is finding some justice. And I felt that justice reading this story, I lavished in that satisfaction much the same way I did when I read Cassandra Khaw's These Deathless Bones. Before Tommy Tester becomes Black Tom, I wondered if there was really anything special here. I wanted more of those shivers of dark magic, perhaps because the pain Tommy experienced was too real and too much. The second half of the book gets darker, more eerie, and while its still a slim story, I could see by the end that it was exactly what it needed. We don't have all the answers or all the details, but we know Black Tom's journey - from man to monster and back again.