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Never stop reading. (Content originally posted at Blogger.)

The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle

The Ballad of Black Tom - Victor LaValle

It’s a myth that life was easier for black people north of the Mason Dixon line during Jim Crow. Charles Thomas Tester, a con man in New York, has to watch his step whenever he leaves the boundaries of Harlem, New York. White people will give him the hairy eyeball and question him on the train. White men will follow him around, waiting to get him in a dark alley. White cops (and they were all white in 1924) will actually reach out and grab his neck before questioning him. It’s rare that a black person would get a chance at revenge. The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle, tells Tom Tester’s story of revenge against the relentless racism all around him with a little help from the Sleeping King...

 

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.