Horror

Victor LaValle’s The Changeling Is Coming To TV, Which Might Actually Make Me Want To Watch TV Again

FX is adapting Victor LaValle's horror novel, The Changeling.

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Steph Auteri

Senior Contributor

Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, Pacific Standard, Rewire News Group, and elsewhere. She's also overshared about her personal life in Creative Nonfiction, under the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and other publications. Her work has twice been listed as Notable by Best American. She's also the author of A Dirty Word, the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine, the Editor in Chief of Feminist Book Club, and the founder of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, Steph enjoys embroidery, singing, yoga, and cat snuggles. You can learn more at stephauteri.com, and you can follow her on Insta, Threads, and Bluesky at @stephauteri.

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Horror was my first love. I was raised on John Saul and Stephen King and I’ve never quite lost my deep attraction to the psychologically effed up and the terrifying. But then I went a large span of time not knowing who to read anymore in the world of horror. And I fell away from it.

But horror has really been rocking my socks off in the past few years, and Victor LaValle has been a huge part of that, what with The Devil in Silver and The Changeling and his comic, Victor LaValle’s Destroyer. Which is why I almost peed my pants in excitement when I was scrolling through Twitter last night and saw that FX was adapting The Changeling for TV.

— Victor LaValle (@victorlavalle) June 13, 2018

The Changeling is LaValle’s most recent novel (June 2017), and is about a father who witnesses his wife commit a horrific act, after which she disappears. As he begins to search for her — for answers? for vengeance? for closure? —things take an unexpected turn.

I won’t reveal too much more, but I wasn’t surprised to read that multiple outlets had bid on the chance to adopt the story, which has been described as “a fairy tale for grown-ups.” Kelly Marcel (Venom, Fifty Shades of Grey, Terra Nova) is reportedly writing the script, while the studio behind the project is Annapurna Television.

Most nights, I spurn the television in favor of cocooning myself in bed and reading ALL THE BOOKS, but this just might be the show to drag me back to the screen.