Certain writers are synonymous with their own pocket of the world. Steinbeck and the Salinas Valley; Stephen King and Maine; Zadie Smith writes about London with a texture that few can match. Victor LaValle, for his part, is a New York City writer. In his genre-fluid fiction, Harlem, Queens, and the East River hustle and bustle with a character all of their own. Whether conjuring a version of his own youth in Slapboxing with Jesus (2002), navigating an enchanted version of the contemporary city in The Changeling (2018), or doing battle with eldritch creatures—and the legacy of H.P. Lovecraft’s racism—in his historical masterwork, The Ballad of Black Tom (2017), LaValle puts the reader right there, among his native streets, with the magic and monsters.
