The Changeling
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- € 9,99
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- € 9,99
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NOW AN APPLE TV+ SERIES STARRING LAKEITH STANDFIELD
ONE OF TIME'S 100 BEST FANTASY BOOKS OF ALL TIME
Winner of an American Book Award, a Locus Award for Best Horror Novel, a British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel, a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel
Nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award, an International Dublin Literary Award and a Mythopeic Award for Literature
When Apollo Kagwa was just a child, his father disappeared, leaving him with recurring nightmares and a box labelled 'Improbabilia'. Now a successful book dealer, Kagwa has a family of his own after meeting and falling in love with Emma, a librarian. The two marry and have a baby: so far so happy-ever-after.
However, as the pair settle into their new lives as parents, exhaustion and anxiety start to take their toll. Emma's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, until one day she commits an unthinkable act, setting Apollo on a wild and fantastical quest through a suddenly otherworldly New York, in search of a wife and child he no longer recognises.
An epic novel for our anxiety-ridden times, The Changeling is a tale of parenthood, love - in its most raw and brutal form - and, ultimately, humanity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
LaValle (The Ballad of Black Tom) displays his unique brand of trippy fabulism in his gripping latest, a modern-day fairy tale about a devoted father's confrontation with evil. "The wildness had only begun," says the narrator early on in the novel, a statement borne out by the eerie, fantastic events to come. The son of a Ugandan woman who raised him on her own, Apollo Kagwa scrapes together a living rummaging through estate sales for rare books. The novel takes its time warming up, somewhat leisurely describing Apollo courting, marrying, and having a baby with Emma Valentine, then becoming a so-called "New Dad": a conscientious, diaper-changing, "emotionally available" modern man. Then the wildness begins with a staggering scene in which Apollo's family is torn apart. In his quest to put himself and his family back together, Apollo, steered by a computer-savvy client interested in one of his rare books, journeys into New York City's hidden enchanted places. There he encounters old magic, monsters, and wicked fathers. LaValle makes occasionally strained efforts to weave contemporary concerns helicopter parenting, online oversharing, and Internet trolls into this elemental fabric. Nonetheless, the novel works best when immersed in the violent, unpredictable realm of dark fairy tales, which, as one character tells Apollo, "are not for children."
