"The Changeling" by Victor LaValle

 "A fairy tale moment, the old kind, when such stories were meant for adults, not kids." Set in New York, in which the magical buts up against the mundane. Apollo, seller of rare books, meets librarian Emma; they marry and have a baby called Brian. Then Emma starts to believe that they have a changeling, a creature from myth, not their own baby. Her dreadful reaction, followed by her disappearance, leads means Apollo must travel into mythic and magical realms (within New York) on  a quest whose purpose shifts as we understand more of what is happening.

I thought the first half of the book was brilliant. 

But it was rather like those horror movies in which the tension builds up until you see the monster, at which point it becomes too hard to suspend disbelief. The first half of the book crackled with mystery. The second half was a straightforward adventure story.

The highlight, apart from the episode in which Emma gives birth on a subway train with the help of four break-dancers, was the relationship between Apollo and Patrice "Usually they were the only two black book men at local estate sales. They might as well be two unicorns that happened into the same field. Of course they’d become close." There is a lot of insult trading as in the best buddy movies and Patrice has a fantastic way of anchoring their adventures in reality, such as when the two young men are seeking to break into a cemetery and Patrice points out that in this (white) neighbourhood the police often shoot first, ask questions later. "We can be heroes,’” Patrice said. “But heroes like us don’t get to make mistakes.”; "Some 'concerned citizen’s' anonymous phone call had killed many a black man before him."

But there were lots of fantastic authorial asides, reflecting on parenting, and the American way of life as seen by a black protagonist in New York City.

But in the end I was terrifically disappointed that a book which promised so much, for so long, dissipated its impact in a fantasy story. 

Selected quotes:

• "Meeting her felt like finding a rose growing in a landfill."
• "They spread wickedness wherever they went."
• "What was waiting on a woman to forgive you compared with having your father beat you up and steal your first paycheck?"
• "In the dark she held his hand. Though they wouldn’t have sex for another three hours, it would be accurate to say their first child—their only child—was conceived right then. A thought, an idea, a shared dream; parenthood is a story two people start telling together."
• "Unsupervised reading is a blessing for a certain kind of child."
• "This was the era of Bernhard Goetz shooting black boys on the subway and many white folks in the city cheering him on. Every kid with excess melanin became a superpredator,"
• "He found a snapshot of the old duo tucked in the pages of a grimoire. They looked like the old man and wife from that movie Up, but this version of Carl and Ellie Fredrickson had been stockpiling volumes of sorcery."
• "Aleister Crowley. A quick check online verified Crowley had been a famed occultist in the early 1900s, called “the wickedest man in history.” Accused of Satanism. A recreational drug user and sexual adventurer back when such a thing was scandalous rather than just a part of one’s online dating profile."
• "When he looked up to greet Apollo, the man’s eyes were lost in a shadow. Since his mouth stayed shrouded in darkness too, it was impossible to see his lips. He looked more ghoulish than gallant."
• "Thirty-eight weeks pregnant, and she looked like a hummingbird that had swallowed an emu egg."
• "Tipsy people are chatty, drunks harangue."
• “'There’s a nude photo of your wife in an art gallery in Amsterdam,' Nichelle said. Is there a proper response to such a revelation? 'Color or black and white?' Apollo asked."
• "Nichelle trailed them by half a block shouting words so slurred they became an invented language."
• "Six weeks was the most time Emma could take off from work before her salary vanished. In the United States this counted as generous."
• "The New Dads. So much better than the Old Dads of the past. New Dads wear their children. New Dads change the baby’s diaper three times a night. New Dads do the dishes and the laundry. New Dads cook the meals. New Dads read the infant development books and do more research online. New Dads apply coconut oil to the baby’s crotch to avoid diaper rash. New Dads bake sweet potatoes, then grind them in the blender once the baby is old enough for solid foods. New Dads carry the diaper bag—really a big old purse—without awareness of shame. New Dads are emotionally available. New Dads do half the housework (really more like 35 percent, but that’s still so much better than zero). New Dads fix all the mistakes the Old Dads made. New Dads are the future, or at least they plan to be, but since they’re making all this shit up as they go along, New Dads are also scared as hell."
• "Apollo brought a frying pan to the stove, poured a capful of olive oil, set the fire, and quickly chopped an onion and garlic clove. He paid inordinate attention to the process in an effort to keep his mouth closed."
• "It was like catching a glimpse of the glittering soul inside a rumpled passenger on a subway train."
• "If our relationships are made of many small lies, they become something larger, a prison of falsehoods."
• "He walked into the kitchen swatting the air, his confusion swarming him like flies."
• "Every human being is a series of stories; it’s nice when someone wants to hear a new one."
• "History isn’t a tale told once, it’s a series of revisions."
• "When I was starting out, you got by on one income, and that was enough, but these days you’ve got to be poor or rich to survive on one income. You want to stay afloat in the middle, and you both are hitting that nine to five.”
• "Vampires can’t come into your house unless you invite them. Posting online is like leaving your front door open and telling any creature of the night it can enter.”
• "Knocking someone unconsciious is incredibly difficult. Apollo wished it was easier."
• "A bad fairy tale has some simple goddamn moral. A great fairy tale tells the truth.”
• “The Scottish called it glamer, ... Glamour. It’s an old kind of magic. An illusion to make something appear different than it really is."
• "No matter the circumstances children are always listening. It can be easy for adults to forget this."
• "He wished, for just a moment, there was an adult present. Lacking one of those, he would have to do."
• "Overcast morning. The snow hadn’t stuck, so the park sagged everywhere, as if a damp blanket had been cast over the land."
• “No one wants to learn their history ... Not all of it. We want our parents to provide but don’t want to know what they had to sacrifice to do it. No nation was ever built with kindness.”
• "You, I know you. One of these special new fathers. You’re going to document every moment, every breath of your child’s life. You take videos of them while they’re sleeping and slap them on the computer before the baby wakes up. You think you’re being so loving. You’ll be a better father than the one who raised you! Or the one who was never there at all. But let me tell you what I see instead. The neediness of it. The begging to be applauded. As if the praise of a thousand strangers would ever make up for the fact that you didn’t feel loved enough as a child."
• "The world is full of glamour, especially when it obscures the suffering of the weak."

The author writes brilliantly and there was so much to enjoy in the first half of the book ... but I felt let down by the second half.

November 2021

• Somewhat strangely, I have just finished The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing which deals with what once might have been thought of as a changeling and its effects on a family in a totally realistic way. I recommend it utterly. 
• Another book about a changeling,  reviewed in this blog, is The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue. This time the story involves magical creatures from the start.

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God