40 pages • 1 hour read
Victor LavalleThe Ballad of Black Tom
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary
In Part 2, the narrative is from Detective Malone’s point of view. The story picks up with Malone in Harlem after he has informed “the Negro,” which is how he refers to Tommy, of his father’s death. Malone and Howard ride out to Flushing, Queens, to deliver the page Howard recovered at the Testers’ residence (it in Otis’s guitar). Before they get on the train, Malone and Howard see Tommy playing his guitar on the platform. The sight of him playing with his eyes closed is disturbing, and they avoid him by waiting at the other end of the platform.
Malone has always been sensitive to otherworldly forces, and when they arrive at Ma Att’s house, he is shocked to see a hulking black form behind Ma Att. Howard seems oblivious to it, only interested in collecting their payment and leaving. Ma Att reveals that the yellow book contains the Supreme Alphabet. She notices that Malone can see the shape emanating from her and taunts him by telling him to come in her house and see “all the things [she] can spell with a little spilled blood” (86). Apart from scaring Malone, this passage foreshadows how the characters will use the book to perform dark magic during the story’s climax. When Malone hears this, he sprints away from the house, leaving Howard behind. He is eager to get back to his precinct in Brooklyn and never see Ma Att again, but the chapter’s final line tells us he is destined to return, though it will be too late to stop events that are already in motion.
Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary
Robert Suydam wins his trial, invalidating his family’s claims of his insanity. Malone sympathizes with Suydam because he too is interested in the arcane. Like Suydam, he finds intriguing symbols and superstitions among the people of Red Hook, where he works to combat illegal immigration, and like Suydam, he regards the locals paternalistically. He enjoys working in the “foreigner-filled warrens of Red Hook” (91) and prides himself on being something of an insider in the neighborhood. He knows the locals appreciate his looking the other way at petty crimes like bootlegging, but he mistakes their tolerance for acceptance.
When Malone returns to Red Hook after Suydam’s case, he realizes that Suydam is the main topic of discussion. During Suydam’s trial, his family cited the “swarthy army” (89) at his home as part of their argument for his insanity. Malone does not know about Suydam’s party and its Red Hook attendees and finds their fixation on Suydam ominous.
Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary
Malone travels to Suydam’s mansion hoping to learn more about his activities. The mansion seems to be abandoned, and when Malone looks through the library windows, he sees that all the books are gone from the shelves. He sees a figure seated in a large chair, but the chair is facing away from the window. As he is straining to get a better view, two police officers catch him, thinking he is a prowler. After showing them his badge and explaining his presence, they help him back onto the windowsill, but the chair and the figure are gone.
Part 2, Chapters 10-12 Analysis
These short chapters introduce us to Detective Malone’s point of view. It is significant that LaValle chooses to switch from Tommy’s point of view to that of a white character because we now see Tommy as white society views him. Though Malone has interacted with Tommy on numerous occasions, even delivering the news of Tommy’s father’s death, he only refers to Tommy as “the Negro.” This signifies that even though Malone was never overtly racist to Tommy like Howard or Suydam, he does not see Tommy as an individual with his own identity, but as someone defined only by race.
Detective Malone is the main character in Lovecraft’s story “The Horror at Red Hook.” In that story, Malone is also interested in mysticism and sensitive to supernatural forces. In Lovecraft’s story, as in LaValle’s, Malone is fascinated by the beliefs and rituals of the immigrant population of Red Hook. Unlike in LaValle’s story, however, Lovecraft’s Malone is horrified by their savagery and considers them dangerous, subhuman life forms. LaValle softens the original Malone’s attitude, but shows that even his passive racism contributes to white supremacy.
One sign that LaValle’s fantasy world departs from Lovecraft’s is the yellow book, Zig Zag Zig. Ma Att says the book contains the Supreme Alphabet. This is an anachronism and something of a gag on LaValle’s part. The Supreme Alphabet is a mystical interpretive system in which each letter of the Latin alphabet has a symbolic meaning. Allah the Father (born Clarence Edward Smith) invented the alphabet in 1964 in Harlem. Allah was the founder of the Five-Percent Nation, which is an offshoot of the Nation of Islam. The doctrine of the Five-Percent Nation is that the Black man is God. The Ballad of Black Tom takes place in 1924, and by inserting an Afro-centric belief system from the 1960s into Lovecraft’s narrative framework, he is reclaiming the past and subverting the original short story’s racist message.
Related Titles
By Victor Lavalle
