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The Changeling by Victor LaValle
Apollo Kagwa is a book man, a rare book seller who spends his time scouring estate sales and dank basements in search of hidden gems worth thousands. He's also a new dad, and on his wife's first day back to work at the New York Public Library he brings their infant son, Brian, with him to the home of a recently deceased man to rifle through boxes upon boxes of stored books. That day, his wife receives a text with a picture of Brian left unattended in the driveway while Apollo is loading books into the car; when confronted, Apollo insists it was only for a moment while he loaded the car and that there was no one else even with him to take the picture. When she tries to show the photo to him she finds it has disappeared from her phone. It is the first of many such messages she will receive, and thus begins the horror that slowly engulfs the Kagwa family as they descend into a nightmare of postpartum depression and violence shaped by the folklore of New York's immigrant waves. Victor LaValle has created something disorienting, frightening, and deeply human in The Changeling, an electrifying and horrific journey through the boroughs of New York from one of the biggest names currently writing in the genre. Victor LaValle's prose is fresh and unexpected, his characters rich and nuanced, and short, eventful chapters make it easy to binge this book like a tube of Pringles; once you pop you truly can't stop.

Read More about February Jelly Rec: Book Recommendations from US Librarian Erika Jelinek