The Ballad of Black Tom

In his fantasy/horror novella, The Ballad of Black Tom (2016), Victor LaValle reworks H.P. Lovecraft’s story, “The Horror at Red Hook,” to explore horror tropes from the perspective of an African American protagonist living in a racist world. The novella won the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy Award, among others. LaValle is an award-winning author of science fiction, horror, fantasy, and comic books known for problematizing the racial assumptions inherent in these genres, which have historically centered whiteness.

Set in Harlem in 1924 during the Harlem Renaissance, the novella follows 20-year-old Charles Thomas “Tommy” Tester, a street hustler who lives in an apartment with his ailing father. The story’s narration is in the close third person, with Part 1 from Tommy’s perspective and Part 2 from the perspective of Detective Malone.

Part 1 opens as Tommy delivers a mysterious yellow book to a woman in Queens named Ma Att. A month later, two police officers, Detective Malone and the private investigator Mr. Howard, question Tommy about a wealthy white man named Robert Suydam, who has offered Tommy an unusually large sum of money to play his guitar at an upcoming party. Tommy pleads ignorance with the detectives. As the detectives leave, Malone hints that he knows Tommy stole a page from Ma Att’s book to keep her from using its magic powers.

Three days later, Tommy arrives at Robert Suydam’s mansion and finds it empty. Suydam explains that it is a trial run for the party he will hold the following evening, where his guests will be people of color who live in ghettos they are too ignorant to escape. Tommy takes issue with this characterization, but Suydam begins speaking of a Sleeping King whom Suydam will raise to destroy mankind. Suydam demonstrates his power by moving the mansion through space and time.

Tommy returns to Harlem the next day and learns that Mr. Howard shot and killed his father while searching for the page from Ma Att’s book. This event leads Tommy to join Suydam in his mission of waking the Sleeping King.

Part 2 shifts to Malone’s perspective. He is with Mr. Howard on his way to deliver the missing page to Ma Att. Malone has been working with Howard to uncover evidence of Robert Suydam’s mental instability at the request of Suydam’s family, who want to take control of Suydam’s fortune. Malone believes Suydam, like himself, is only curious about the occult and poses no threat. Suydam wins his case, and Malone returns to his beat in Red Hook fighting illegal immigration.

Malone learns that Suydam has taken over three tenement buildings in Red Hook, assisted by a Negro known as Black Tom. Malone sets out to find Suydam but encounters Tommy, who now goes by Black Tom. Malone invents allegations that Black Tom has kidnapped a white woman, mobilizing 75 police officers with heavy artillery to invade Red Hook and begin making arrests.

The police officers wreak havoc on the neighborhood, shooting up buildings and arresting people at random. Malone enters Suydam’s building and finds a door marked with a magic sigil that the other officers cannot see. It leads to a basement where strange words are written on the walls in blood. Suydam and Black Tom are opening a portal to the underworld, and Malone glimpses the terrifying Sleeping King. Black Tom suddenly slits Suydam’s throat and forces Malone to look into the abyss. When Malone refuses, Black Tom cuts off Malone’s eyelids, disappearing just as six officers break in and open fire.

Malone retires to a small town in Rhode Island. He wears dark goggles to hide his lidless eyes and sees a specialist who convinces him that he hallucinated the supernatural events. Malone tries to live a quiet life but is haunted by his experience and the menacing Black Tom.

At the Victoria Society in Harlem, George Hurley, or Buckeye, tries to convince his best friend that he is Tommy Tester, not Black Tom, but it is too late; he has unleashed the apocalypse and lost his soul. He wonders why he couldn’t be more like his father. While Buckeye decides how to dispose of the blood-caked razor, Black Tom leaps from the window and disappears.