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The Ballad of Black Tom
  • Published: 12 January 2027
  • ISBN: 9781804999899
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $24.99

The Ballad of Black Tom

Formats & editions
Paperback
12 Jan 2027
Audiobook
17 Sept 2026
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THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM is a retelling and reclamation of H.P. Lovecraft’s most xenophobic story, THE HORROR AT RED HOOK, from the perspective of a black man. Set in 1920s Harlem, a hustler and musician known as Tommy trades in illicit occult items. When he agrees to deliver a magical tome to a secretive sorceress, he gains the attention of dangerous and incomprehensible beings that are best left slumbering.

The Sleeping King rests at the bottom of the ocean.
The Sleeping King slumbers on the other side of the door.
The Sleeping King is dead but dreaming.

In New York City, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table and keep a roof over his father's head.
He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the glamour written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops.
But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic and earns the attention of things best left alone. There is something ancient and hungry that sleeps just on the other side of reality and must never be woken.

A tempest that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn, and Black Tom is trapped in the eye of the storm. Will he live to see it break?

The Ballad of Black Tom is an atmospheric historical horror which reimagines and reclaims the Lovecraftian Mythos.

‘This ingenious recasting of an H.P. Lovecraft classic is as creepy as it is thought-provoking.’ People

‘Stands on its own as a compelling weird tale of Jazz-age New York City, but its penetrating examination of Lovecraft’s creations and how they reflect racism’s profound influence on our cultural imagination is where it really shines.’ Slate

‘LaValle's novella of sorcery and skullduggery in Jazz Age New York is a magnificent example of what weird fiction can and should do.’ Laird Barron
  • Published: 12 January 2027
  • ISBN: 9781804999899
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Victor LaValle

Victor LaValle is the author of six previous works of fiction: three novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories. His novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives in New York City with his wife and kids and teaches at Columbia University.
portrait photo of Victor LaValle

Also by Victor LaValle

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Praise for The Ballad of Black Tom

Ingenious... darkly witty... The writing is full of rage and passion: love for the vanished culture of 1920s Harlem and love — conflicted — for crazy Lovecraft.

New York Times

Holds all the horror of the cosmic void that has made the Lovecraft mythos such an enduring cultural artifact, placing it deftly amid the very real terrors of life for a young black man in a racist society.

Metastellar

LaValle's novella of sorcery and skullduggery in Jazz Age New York is a magnificent example of what weird fiction can and should do.

Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All

LaValle cleverly subverts Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos by imbuing a black man with the power to summon the Old Ones, and creates genuine chills with his evocation of the monstrous Sleeping King.

Elizabeth Hand, author of A Haunting on the Hill

LaValle has taken Lovecraft’s most notorious tale and reframed it for us as an even more horrifying story, exceptionally well-written with the utmost attention to detail... The horrors of the story are both real and imagined for the reader, as we confront racism head-first with some nasty dealings in the arcane arts designed to wake up the sleeping ‘Elder Gods’.

This Is Horror

This ingenious recasting of an H.P. Lovecraft classic is as creepy as it is thought-provoking.

People

The Ballad of Black Tom stands on its own as a compelling weird tale of Jazz-age New York City, but its penetrating examination of Lovecraft’s creations and how they reflect racism’s profound influence on our cultural imagination is where it really shines.

Slate