So spare and unsentimental that it’s impossible not to be moved. He even finds a warm, resonant ending without hammering a happily-ever-after sign to the end of the book. Forget your preconceived notions about the genre. A rich, imaginative novel is a lot of people’s fantasy.
In The Stolen Child, an 1886 poem by William Butler Yeats, a fairy — one of the mainstays of European folklore — lures a child away from the only world he has ever known. This work by the great Irish poet is the inspiration behind a captivating tale of the same name by first-time novelist Keith Donohue.
Folk legends of the changeling serve as a touchstone for Donohue’s haunting debut, set vaguely in the American northeast, about the maturation of a young man troubled by questions of identity. At age seven, Henry Day is kidnapped by hobgoblins and replaced by a look-alike impostor.
