PositiveThe Buffalo NewsVictor Lavalle's new, many-layered version transfers the changeling tales from most of medieval Europe and parts of Africa through time and space – and cultures – to today's Manhattan … Some puzzling plot work follows, with the husband, Apollo, demanding at gunpoint that Emma's fellow librarians tell him where she has fled. That siege lets the author drive home the Manhattan-ness of his setting…The episode also illustrates Lavalle's use of a magicians' technique...between his use of suggestion and distraction, he eases the readers into a new state, where nothing is as it seems … Lavalle casts some up-to-date light on one of the more obscure areas of cultural development, the political and social uses of myth. Without destroying the magic of these old stories, he has made The Changeling well worth the time and effort.
