5/19/2023 0 Comments The changeling lavalle![]() ![]() LaValle has a knack for blending social realism with genre tropes ( The Ballad of Black Tom, 2012, etc.), and this blend of horror story and fatherhood fable is surprising and admirably controlled. ![]() But after some young-parent squabbles and inexplicable images on their smartphones foreshadow trouble, the story turns nightmarish: Apollo finds himself tied up and beaten by Emma, then forced to listen to the sounds of Brian’s murder. ![]() Apollo, the son of a single mother, had been scraping by as a bookseller who hunts estate and garage sales for rare first editions, so even the unusual circumstance of Brian's birth (in a stalled subway train) seems like a blessing, as does the way Apollo stumbles across a first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird (inscribed by Harper Lee to Truman Capote, no less) shortly after. When Apollo and Emma have their baby, Brian, it feels like both reward and challenge for the new dad. A tragedy thrusts a mourning father into peculiar, otherworldly corners of New York City. ![]()
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