The Changeling
Victor LaValle
“When Apollo was born, Brian and Lillian thought they'd reached the end of their story but they'd been wrong. The wildness had only begun.”
Available as Paperback, eBook
An epic phantasmagoria, in which a book dealer’s journey into parenthood takes a nightmarish turn
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.
“A mesmerising, monumental work … a dark fairy tale of New York, full of magic and loss, myth and mystery, love and madness”
Marlon James, Author Of The Dark Star Trilogy
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“If the literary gods mixed together Haruki Murakami and Ralph Ellison … the result would be Victor LaValle”
Anthony Doerr, Author Of All The Light We Cannot See
“[A] genre-defying, achingly literate phantasmagoria of a novel”
Paul Beatty, Author Of The Sellout
“This punchy cocktail of modern parenting and ancient magic taps into contemporary unease and age-old fears … LaValle hooks the reader deep into his increasingly eldritch thriller”
guardian
“If monsters are your subject, writing like an angel helps”
Jennifer Senior
new York Times
Victor LaValle
Victor LaValle is the author of six previous works of fiction. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives in New York with his wife and children and teaches at Columbia University.
@victorlavalle | victorlavalle.com
