151 pages
Published 2016
Read from April 12 to April 13
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Years and years ago, before I read Pym by Mat Johnson, I felt I needed to read the racist old novel that Pym retold. This time around, I felt no such need for homework. I'm free to read modern antiracist retellings of Lovecraft without the requirement to read the racist originals.
The Ballad of Black Tom works well on its own. The novella gives you enough detail that you can more or less piece together the shape of Lovecraft's original. The first half, told from the perspective of Charles Thomas Tester before he became Lovecraft's "Black Tom," is a standout of modern cosmic horror in a historical fiction milieu, sensitive, perceptive, awash with looming otherworldly peril but grounded in the historical horrors of racism and police violence. The second half, from the vantage of NYPD detective Malone, is adequate but far less revelatory. I wish the entire book had been told from Tommy Tester's point of view.
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