Horror

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

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Steph Auteri

Senior Contributor

Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her more creative work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, under the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and other publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She also writes bookish stuff here and at the Feminist Book Club, is the author of A Dirty Word, and is the founder of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring at the birds in her backyard feeder. You can learn more at stephauteri.com and follow her on Insta/Threads 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.