On the surface, Donohue may seem to have written a clever debut novel about fairies. But the real triumph of the book is that, while our backs were turned, he has performed a switch and delivered a luminous and thrilling novel about our humanity. 

Keith Donohue manages something like an eyes-open return to childhood in his magical and powerful debut novel, “The Stolen Child.” It is an unsettling and gorgeously written tale of two boys who are forced out of their childhoods too early.

Like Graham Joyce’s The Tooth Fairy or Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, The Stolen Child is the kind of mainstream fantasy that takes place at the borders of recognizable reality; Donohue’s beautifully evocative prose channels some of Yeats’ poetic whimsy, but he stays grounded in convincing relationships on both sides of that border, and his style is more modern literary classic than fairytale fluff.

Donohue, a Pittsburgh native, has done the remarkable in fashioning an inaugural effort that fairly begs the term “classic.”

Indeed, it’s tempting to compare his work here to that of Barrie, Baum and even Tolkien—not just as a fanciful exploration of a childhood surrendered, but for its visual imagery and magic prose. But that simply wouldn’t be fair since it stands tall of its own accord.