{
    "id": 341111,
    "slug": "the-ballad-of-black-tom",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "The Ballad of Black Tom",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "<p>One of NPR's Best Books of 2016, winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, the British Fantasy Award, the This is Horror Award for Novella of the Year, and a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards<br /> <br /> People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there.<br /> <br /> Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse 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 sleeping.<br /> <br /> A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?<br /> <br /> ''LaValle's novella of sorcery and skullduggery in Jazz Age New York is a magnificent example of what weird fiction can and should do.'' <br /> \u0097 Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All<br /> <br /> ''[LaValle] reinvents outmoded literary conventions, particularly the ghettos of genre and ethnicity that long divided serious literature from popular fiction.''<br /> \u0097 Praise for The Devil in Silver from Elizabeth Hand, author of Radiant Days<br /> <br /> \u0093LaValle cleverly subverts Lovecraft\u0092s 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, an echo of Lovecraft\u0092s Dagon\u0085 [The Ballad of Black Tom] has a satisfying slingshot ending.\u0094 \u0096 Elizabeth Hand for Fantasy &amp; ScienceFiction</p>",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 160,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "2016-10-23",
    "publication_date_latest": "2016-10-23",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [
        {
            "isbn": "9780765387868",
            "product_form": "BC"
        }
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    "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:23:37+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-10-31T00:27:41+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 4695,
        "slug": "st-martins-press-2",
        "name": "St. Martin's Press",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:11:52+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:10:34+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [
        {
            "id": 206523,
            "slug": "victor-lavalle",
            "key_names": "LaValle",
            "names_before_key": "Victor",
            "prefix_to_key": null,
            "contributor_role": "A01",
            "readable_contributor_role": "Author"
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    ],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": [
        {
            "scheme_identifier": "32",
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            "subject_code": "334",
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