Victor LaValle

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Victor LaValle
Born	(1972-02-03) February 3, 1972 (age 49) Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
Occupation	Author
Nationality	American
Website
www.victorlavalle.com

Victor LaValle (born February 3, 1972) is an American author. He is the author of a short-story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus and four novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, The Devil in Silver, and The Changeling. LaValle writes fiction primarily, though he has also written essays and book reviews for GQ, Essence Magazine, The Fader, and The Washington Post, among others.

Early life[]

Victor LaValle was born on February 3, 1972 and raised in the Flushing and Rosedale neighborhoods of Queens, New York by a single mother who had emigrated from Uganda in her twenties. He attended Woodmere Academy and went on to earn a degree in English from Cornell University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University.

Literary career[]

Slapboxing with Jesus was published in 1999 by Vintage Books. The eleven interconnected stories deal mostly with the lives of young black and Latino men living in New York in the 1970s and 1980s. The collection went on to receive wide critical praise. It won the author a PEN Open Book Award^[1] and the Key to Jamaica, Queens.^[2]

The Ecstatic was published in 2002 by Crown Publishing Group. The novel continues the story of Anthony James, a character from LaValle's collection of stories. Anthony is a morbidly obese college dropout who may also be experiencing the first signs of schizophrenia. The novel follows the exploits of his family, who are trying their best to save Anthony, but who might be in need of a little saving themselves. The subject matter is dark, and even shocking, but a gallows humor runs throughout. This book received even wider critical acclaim, earning comparisons to writers such as Ken Kesey, Chester Himes, and John Kennedy Toole. In 2003 the novel was a finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.^{[citation needed]} It became a favorite novel for rapper Mos Def, who later titled his 2009 studio album after it.^[3]

Big Machine was published in 2009 by Spiegel & Grau. The novel tells the story of Ricky Rice, an ex-junkie survivor of a suicide cult whose life is changed when a mysterious letter arrives summoning him to a remote compound in Vermont. The novel was widely praised upon its release, making many national top ten lists. It also won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel in 2009, as well as the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and an American Book Award in 2010.

The Devil in Silver published by Spiegel & Grau August 21, 2012, is the story of Pepper, a sane man sent for observation to a mental hospital. There he encounters a monster roaming the nighttime halls. He teams up with some of the other inmates to fight the mental confusion of the drugs he is required to take, the staff, and the monster.

The Ballad of Black Tom, a novella, was published by Tor Books on February 16, 2016. It is a retelling of the H. P. Lovecraft story "The Horror at Red Hook" from the point of view of a young black man living in Harlem with a reference to the Nation of Gods and Earths.^[4]

The Changeling, published in 2017 by Spiegel & Grau and received critical acclaim. It was selected as one of 2017's ten best books by New York Public Library^[5] and won a 2018 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel,^[6] the 2018 Locus Award for Horror Novel,^[7][8] and the 2018 British Fantasy Award for Horror Novel.^[9]

Destroyer, a graphic novel published in 2017 by Boom! Studios, is a modern retelling of Frankenstein. The story follows an African-American descendant of Dr. Frankenstein, her only son who was killed in a police encounter, and the monster from the original novel who has long given up on peace.^[10]

Personal life[]

LaValle is an associate professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts. He lives in New York with his wife, novelist Emily Raboteau, son and daughter.^[11]

Awards and nominations[]

• 2019 Bram Stoker Award Superior Achievement in Short Fiction, winner ("Up from Slavery," Weird Tales Magazine #363)
• 2018 World Fantasy Award Best Novel, winner ("The Changeling")
• 2018 British Fantasy Award Best Horror Novel, winner ("The Changeling")
• 2018 Mythopoeic Award Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, finalist ("The Changeling")
• 2017 Shirley Jackson Award Best Novel, finalist ("The Changeling")
• 2017 Dragon Award Best Horror Novel, winner ("The Changeling")
• 2017 World Fantasy Award finalist for Best Long Fiction ("The Ballad of Black Tom")
• 2017 British Fantasy Award finalist for Best Novella ("The Ballad of Black Tom")
• 2017 Theodore Sturgeon Award finalist ("The Ballad of Black Tom")
• 2016 Shirley Jackson Award winner for Novella ("The Ballad of Black Tom")
• 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novella finalist (The Ballad of Black Tom)^[12]
• 2016 Nebula Award finalist for Best Novella (The Ballad of Black Tom)^[13]
• 2016 Bram Stoker Award finalist for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction ("The Ballad of Black Tom")
• 2016 Novella of the Year ("The Ballad of Black Tom")
• 2010-2011 Dutch Foundation for Literature, Writer-in-Residence, Amsterdam^[14]
• 2010 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence^[15]
• 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship^[16]
• 2010 American Book Awards - Winner^[17]
• 2009 Shirley Jackson Award - Winner - Best Novel
• 2009 John Nichols (journalist) 2009 list of picks: Most Valuable Fiction Book^[18]
• 2009 Publishers Weekly 10 Best Books of 2009^[19]
• 2009 Los Angeles Times Best Science Fiction of 2009
• 2009 Chicago Tribune Favorite Fiction of 2009
• 2006 United States Artists Ford Fellowship^[20]
• 2004 Whiting Award
• 2003 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, Finalist (The Ecstatic)
• 2003 PEN/Faulkner Award, Finalist (The Ecstatic)
• 2002 PEN/Open Book Award, Winner (Slapboxing with Jesus)^[1]
• 2000 Breadloaf Writer's Fellowship
• 1998 Fine Arts Work Center, Fiction Fellow

Works[]

Books[]

• Slapboxing with Jesus: Stories. Vintage. 1999. ISBN 978-0-375-70590-8.
• The Ecstatic. Crown. 2002. ISBN 978-0-609-61014-5.
• Big Machine. Spiegel & Grau. 2009. ISBN 978-0-385-52798-9.
• The Devil in Silver. Spiegel & Grau. 2012. ISBN 978-1-400-06986-6.
• The Ballad of Black Tom. Tor. 2016. ISBN 978-0-765-38786-8.
• The Changeling. 2017. 2017. ISBN 978-0812995947.
• As Editor, with John Joseph Adams: A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers. Random House Group. 2019. ISBN 978-0525508816.

Essays[]

• "Long Distance". Granta (110: Sex). Spring 2010.

Comics[]

• Destroyer. BOOM! Studios. 2018. ISBN 9781684150557.

Notes[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Victor LaValle.

• Review of Slapboxing with Jesus.
• Review of The Ecstatic.
• Wall Street Journal Review of Big Machine.
• LaValle reviews two story collections for Washington Post.
• Extensive interview about "Narrative Voice" and writing craft.
• Victor LaValle discusses Nobel Laureate Kenzaburō Ōe.
• United States Artists Videos
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation