March 2018 Meeting: The Changeling by Victor LaValle

In March’s book club discussion about Victor LaValle’s Changeling, we talked about the fantastical power that’s often ascribed to parents. Though parents have the power to bring us into the world, they are, in many ways, powerless in how we navigate through it. The Changeling’s plot about a father who doesn’t realize that his baby is switched out with a troll is a symbol of this. Victor never discloses in the book when the baby is switched out, which is intentional. If we, as readers, are aware of the moment when the baby switched, it would be easy to say what we would’ve done differently. The stories we tell ourselves in order to live. The ones that don’t sound fantastical until we repeat them to someone else. It’s then when we see the power of fiction at play. March’s meeting was both an interrogation and celebration of this power—and it was lit, like always