read my mind

Friday, December 15

Here's a book I doubt can be found easily in Singapore. It's called The Stolen Child, by Keith Donohue. I ordered this through Kinokuniya, their price was $43 thereabouts.

The Stolen Child tells the story of Henry Day, a boy of six or seven, who was abducted by changelings, while one of them took his place. He becomes known as Aniday to his new friends. The real and fake Henry Day are haunted by their pasts, and by each other. They often unknowingly cross paths in the course of the novel, and both embark on creative works to explore and explain to themselves the story of their pasts. The book is told by both the real Henry and the impostor chapter by chapter, which works very comfortably and efficiently to show how each is unable to fit completely into the world that now possesses them. The resolution of the novel is very resonant in that the motivations behind Henry and Aniday's creative works are the same.

Yikes this review is boring. But the book is not. Read it!