The Stolen Child

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

Category: Fantasy Grade: A-

Carolyn and I don't typically have the same taste in books. I'd say that maybe one of every ten books each of us reads gets referred to the other. Of those, maybe half actually get read and half of those actually have us both saying good things. Top that off with the fact that Carolyn almost never reads fantasy novels (the last was probably Bear's Infinity Concerto a decade ago) and you'll understand why I was a little skeptical when she raved about Donohue's debut novel and strongly suggested I read it. But, given that this was a book that sounded up my alley, I decided to give it a try.

For most of you (as suggested by a review of the book in Newsweek), the fact that its called a fantasy will be a showstopper and that'd really be a shame. I can understand the reluctance since, for the most part, fantasy novels are pigeon-holed -- they're about dragons or knights or quests or hobbits and have a real small audience. They're usually written for teens and you have to be a real fan to find the gems.

The Stolen Child is different - it's pretty much a fantasy for thinking adults. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't anywhere near the sex and violence that you usually find in teen-targeted fantasies, it's just a little more cerebral than most of the genre. The book is based on the old legend of "changelings". In the legend, children are stolen from their homes and replaced by a changeling who takes over the child's life. The stolen child then becomes part of the pack of changelings until decades or even centuries later, it becomes their turn to take over the life of yet another child.

This book starts with the theft/replacement of a six-year-old Henry Day. Henry has run away from home, giving the changeling tribe the opportunity to snatch the boy they've been observing. Armed with the knowledge that the tribe has gained, the eldest of the changelings leaves the tribe to, essentially, become Henry Day. Interesting setup and, we firmly expect to follow the trials of the changeling's effort to assume his new life -- to fill in the gaps in his knowledge of the family; to learn to modify his body to mimic a boy growing up; to forget his past as a changeling and, before that, as a real child. We get this and the story is fascinating, but that alone would have made this a readable, but probably ordinary book.

What makes Donohue's book special is that the "original" Henry Day, now a changeling called Aniday, stays with us throughout the book. The chapters alternate between the two characters and follows them through the next several decades as the real-world Henry Day grows to be a man with familiar but slightly "off" life and the changeling-world Aniday tries to master the ageless life of the changeling tribe in an increasingly hostile world.

To me, unless you're a true "sword-and-sorcery" fantasy fan, books like this, that mingle the familiar with the fantastic are the best kind of fantasy novels. Donohue's prose is terrific. Finally, unlike most of today's fantasy novels, this one does not seem to be a setup for a series of sequels. In fact, I was all set to give this book a solid B rating until the very-satisfying ending, pushed the grade up. This is definitely a fantasy for those of you don't usually read fantasy.