The Ballad of Black Tom

I have more enjoyed reading about what has been called Victor LaValle's "love-letter-slash-rebuke" to H. P Lovecraft than I enjoyed the novel itself. His story is an entertaining re-invention of 'The Horror of Red Hook," possibly the most unashamedly racist of HPL's narratives, a new version where the insertion of an African American protagonist, his perspective, and his everyday world highlight the repressed dimensions of Lovecraft's psyche. When LaValle speaks in interviews or writes about his own work, his analysis of the pervasive racism in Lovecraft's fiction, manifested in his sense of cosmic horrors waiting to engulf our world, is incisive. The story he has created is an acceptable weird tale with elements that do little more than bring us up to date on the ongoing debate about Lovecraft's writing and influence.