The Changeling by Victor LaValle

Summary: 

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 in a wild and fantastical quest through a suddenly otherworldly New York, in search of a wife and child he no longer recognises.

About the Author:

Victor LaValle is an American author, born in 1972. He writers novels and short stories in the horror and speculative fiction genres. He lives in New York and is an associate professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts. The Changeling was published in 2017.

Rating:

2 stars - ★★☆☆☆

Review:

As I’m trying to be more realistic with my ratings this year, I’ve got to give The Changeling 2 stars. I’m also trying not to read other people’s reviews before opening a book and reviewing it myself, to avoid being influenced by anyone else's opinions. 

So, my personal opinion is that I really wanted to enjoy The Changeling. But I just didn’t love the writing style, I didn’t forge any rapport with the characters, and the whole story felt quite unfinished.

There were too many storylines which were unnecessary and I couldn’t grasp their significance or follow them to their conclusion. The Changeling starts with Apollo’s parent’s story which then flows into Apollo’s story. There’s the story about what happened to Apollo’s dad and Apollo’s ensuing nightmares. Neither of which have a real link to the main story in my opinion. There’s some parallels between what happens to Apollo as a child and Apollo’s own son but there’s not any real significance to this in the end. 

I felt myself constantly waiting for the story to start. You’d get a story going, then you’d move on to another story. So you’d think, ok it’s starting now. Then you’d move on to something else. By about halfway through I gave up waiting for that moment and resigned myself to rushing through to the end and hoping that I’d get some sense to the whole thing by the time the conclusion came around. 

I was waiting for it all to come together and for there to be this big revelation but that never happened. There was no twist or surprise. There were lots of different sub-plots going on, none of which had a tidy conclusion or even relevance to the main story. I don’t understand the significance of hearing Apollo’s parents story, I don’t understand why the photos were being sent to Emma’s phone, I don’t really know what went on on the island with Cal at the end, I have so many unanswered questions. It needed a couple of chapters at the end to just tidy everything up.

There were lots of really specific details that then had no relation to the story. The make and model of the cars kept being repeated over and over again. So you were expecting something to be done with that. But no. The description of Patrice’s computer was really specific but probably wouldn’t mean anything to anyone unless they were into computers, so again didn’t really serve a purpose. An author can only put a limited amount of description into a story, so they have to be critical about what they should and shouldn’t include. The descriptions need to serve some kind of purpose. Is it to create an atmosphere? Is it relevant to the story later on? Or is it just included because the author has done some research and wants to show that off?

I had no favourite characters. Apollo was the only one you really got some kind of detail to. 

Emma’s breakdown was not obvious or defined or described. The fact that her ‘unspeakable act’ happened when it happened was a surprise to me. I was expecting it to be built up far more than that, to really create a story and emotion for the characters. For having such an integral role in the story, I didn’t feel like I knew Emma at all.

I did tend to enjoy individual scenes. Like there was a flash of something good. The Changeling almost felt like it was written to be a movie. Each chapter was a scene, flitting between stories and timelines. Which works in a movie but, to me, defeats the object of the medium if it’s done in a book. 

I also enjoyed the weaving of fairy tales and folklore into the modern world. I liked the storyline about how dangerous social media and the internet is; how easy it is to get people’s information online and the implications of that. In my mind, that’s the read horror as it’s the world we live in now. And being a fairly recent victim of hacking, it’s something that I feel strongly about now.

Although The Changeling is a horror story, (similar to The Ghost Tree) I feel like this should sit more in the Dark Fantasy genre. It’s just not as scary to me as I expect horror to be. And I’m easily scared too. I’m tempted to try some Stephen King just to really make sure that it’s not me being too critical of horror books. In fact, I’ve just hopped over and added ‘Carrie’ to my TBR list on Goodreads.

Reading the reviews that are on the cover of my copy of The Changeling, it is way overhyped. One person said: “Genre-defying, achingly literate phantasmagorica of a novel”. Which is an insane review for such an incomplete story. I had high hopes but once again, they were dashed in the execution. The concept was interesting and I was intrigued enough to keep reading. I always appreciate some magic and fantasy. It’s also a very different book to anything I’ve read before, especially with it being heavily about parenthood. I’m glad that I’m trying some new genres and subjects.

If other reviews are to be believed, many people have enjoyed The Changeling, so if you’re into dark fantasy and bringing fairy tales into the modern world then I would recommend The Changeling. Maybe you’ll have more luck than I did.