SciFi & Fantasy Book Club

To celebrate the Spooky Season, SciFi & Fantasy book club will be confronting eldritch horrors beneath the streets of New York with Victor LaValle's acclaimed novella The Ballad of Black Tom. Copies are available from the library in paperback and digital formats. As an optional add-on, attendees are encouraged to read HP Lovecraft's short story The Horror at Red Hook, which The Ballad of Black Tom was written in response to. Readers be advised that The Horror at Red Hook is a controversial story with strongly bigoted themes and is included in this book club session to provide context for LaValle's work and a point of comparison with The Ballad of Black Tom. It can be found online here. From the publisher: "People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there. 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. A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?"

Last updated October 23, 2026