The Ballad of Black Tom / The Horror at Red Hook

The Big Book Club Podcast from Arlington Public Library

Victor LaValle’s 2016 fantasy-horror novella “The Ballad of Black Tom,” which revisits H.P. Lovecraft’s 1925 short story “The Horror at Red Hook,” is an excellent example of an author not only building upon but surpassing the foundations of a literary genre.

Reminder: this is a spoiler-filled podcast. So if you’re not into that kind of thing, read the book first and come back later.

Episode Links

"The Ballad of Black Tom" by Victor LaValle and "The Horror at Red Hook" by H.P. Lovecraft

Kintsugi, or golden joinery, also known as "golden repair (kintsukuroi) is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Wikipedia entry.

Reading

• Pete – "Beetlejuice" and "The Thing"
• Jennie - “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
• Megan – “One Last Stop” by Casey McQuiston

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If you’d like to make a suggestion for future reading send us your recommendations on the Big Book Club Podcast page on the Arlington Public Library website.

Upcoming Books:

“Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “The Chosen and the Beautiful” by Nghi Vo

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her. But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how. Nghi Vo’s debut novel, "The Chosen and the Beautiful," reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.