Thomas Gaffney reviewed The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Glorious
5 stars
A retelling of HP Lovecraft's The Horror at Red Hook, but from the POV of Black Tom. Takes the racist story from the notoriously racist Lovecraft and puts the power of The Great Old Ones in the hands of a Black man who suffered from society. Black Tom is set entirely in Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos where the original story predated Cthulhu and was spottily tied to the mythos at best.
Overall, The Ballad of Black Tom was brilliant and amazing. HIGHLY recommended for anyone, but especially for those who like/prefer cosmic horror. I don't know what took me so long to read this book, but I'm glad it was required reading for my The Haunted Library lit class at Emerson.
I'll take Cthulhu over you devils any day.