VICTOR D. LAVALLE

Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his fathers head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?

In Victor LaValle's spectacular new novel, "Big Machine," race and religion are the subterranean tributaries that threaten to destroy America's underclass, even as they help