The Ballad of Black Tom is a fantasy horror about about the eponymous protagonist, 20-year-old Charles Thomas Tester, who hustles his way through life, playing his guitar on the streets of Harlem to provide for himself and his ailing father. Until one day, he is tasked with delivering a mysterious book to a lady in Queen's, New York. From there his life follows a strange pattern of events that sucks him into a cultish world of mysticism and violence.

The story was bizarre and unsettling but still managed to capture of the realism of 1920s Harlem with its segregation and rampant racism. I loved the father-son relationship between Otis and Charles, there was something very visceral about it and the horror-fantasy elements were full of intrigue.

I felt like some parts of the story were left undeveloped such as the enigma that is Ma Att and her particular interest in the yellow book that Black Tom delivered; also I thought the structure of the story was incongruous in parts. It is separated into parts one and two and told from the perspective of two different characters but during the latter part of the story the transition from the second POV character (Malone) back to the eponymous main character was out of sync with the the rest of the story up until that point (you'd have to read it) I thought it was telling and lacking in structural soundness.

I also thought the character of Suydam was problematic; I wasn't a fan of his orientalist / exotic view of different ethnic minorities and all the messianic symbolism attached to his character played into this typical white saviour narrative that is synonymous with a lot of white-centric fiction. The story does redeem itself in this regard but it was irksome to read.

Overall, I enjoyed reading The Ballad of Black Tom. It wasn't scary in a spooky, creepy way but it succeeded in being a macabre, ominous story, perfect for the fainthearted horror readers.