'The Changeling' Is, Itself, A Changeling Of A Book
Victor LaValle's story of a rare book dealer whose life is torn apart after his wife commits an act of violence and vanishes is by turns enchanting, horrifying, infuriating and heartbreaking.
I keep wondering how I'd feel about The Changeling if I'd started by reading the flaps, and let someone else build the box into which to pour my reading experience.
As it was, my only clues about the kind of book it would be came from the title and Yuko Shimizu's intriguing cover art. I'm fluent in folklore. I know what changelings are. As I started reading, I began to think this would be a fantasy novel, where everything is fairies but no one talks about the fairies and the fairies are long loping metaphors for generations' worth of relationships with enchantment.
