A world of fog-shrouded mysteries
It was last spring, at the Ad Astra convention in Toronto, that I first heard of Victor LaValle. Surrounded by science fiction, fantasy, thriller and horror writers, it seemed everyone was talking about “The Ballad of Black Tom,” which was, at the time, the New York writer ’s most recent book.
Once I had a chance to read it I could understand why: “The Ballad of Black Tom” is an uncanny tale that slips into the genuinely horrifying, while never losing its focus on its characters and its world.
“The Ballad of Black Tom” definitely got my attention; LaValle’s new novel, “The Changeling,” may have made me a convert.
At once sprawling and intimate, “The Changeling” focuses on Apollo Kagwa, a New York City bookman, diving into basements and estate sales looking for literary treasures to resell. The novel begins, however, before Kagwa’s birth, with the meeting and courtship of his parents, Ugandan immigrant Lillian Kagwa and Syracuse refugee Brian West. It seems like a blessed relationship, but “by Apollo’s fourth birthday, Brian West was gone,” decamped without a trace.
Though crucial, that’s just background — the novel concerns itself chiefly with Apollo as an adult, his relationship with Emma, who becomes his wife, and their young son, Brian, born on a stalled subway car.
LaValle understands that f airy tales are not for children, and they don’t all end with “happily ever after.” He has created an enthralling, genuinely surprising novel that is simultaneously contemporary (you’ll never look at Internet trolls the same way again) and timeless, woven of the truths we try to deny, even when facing them head-on.