This is the second rewrite of Lovecraft's Horror at Red Hook I've read this year, after Moore's Neonomicon. I suppose there's a reason that story feels relevant to revisit in the 21st century; on one hand, it's easily one of Lovecraft's most blatantly racist, misogynist and just downright... messy stories. On the other, it's about an America (specifically, a pre-gentrification Brooklyn) struggling to find its identity in the conflict between haves and havenots, Anglos and illegal immigrants (specifially, Syrians), Order and Chaos.

There's always the question if you can rewrite Lovecraft without acknowledging and doing something with the less appetizing bits of his writing. Moore skipped part of that by setting his rewrite in the more-or-less present, post-aforementioned-gentrification, and partly by simply revelling in it through his openly racist narrator. LaValle does something cleverer; brings more life to 1925 New York than Lovecraft did, shifts the focus, offers a counter-narrative, plays a counterpoint on a beat-up blues guitar and Son House's lyrics. There's more than one story in America. As people have pointed out, what's horrible in Lovecraft - the realisation that you're not the centre of the universe, that being a bigoted white man doesn't automatically earn you points with a cold uncaring cosmos - is just what everyone else has always had to live with, and built their stories around.

Who's that writing - John the Revelator

Enter Black Tom, who knows his people always lose, but at least he's going to matter.