Jasper Fforde
Three separate interviews in which Jasper Fforde discusses the Thursday Next series, his Nursery Crime novels and Shades of Grey, the first in a trilogy set in a future world recognizable as our own - but only just.
Abraham Verghese
An interview with Abraham Verghese about his life and writing and in particular about his extraordinary 2009 novel Cutting for Stone, set in 1960s and '70s Ethiopia and 1980s New York.
Martha A Sandweiss
An interview with Martha Sandweiss in which she discusses her book Passing Strange, a biography of Clarence King who lived a double life—as the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a black Pullman porter named James Todd, married to Ada with whom he had five children.
Amy Greene
Amy Greene talks about her first novel, Bloodroot, which brings her native Appalachia—and the faith and fury of its people—to rich and vivid life.
The Stolen Child: Summary and book reviews of The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue, plus links to an excerpt from The Stolen Child and a biography of Keith Donohue.
The Stolen Child A Novel
by
Keith Donohue
Hardcover: May 2006,
336 pages.
Paperback: May 2007,
384 pages.
Inspired by the
W.B. Yeats poem that tempts a child from home to the waters and the wild, The
Stolen Child is a modern fairy tale narrated by the child Henry Day and his
double. On a summer night, Henry Day runs away from home and hides in a hollow tree.
There he is taken by the changelings—an unaging tribe of wild children who live
in darkness and in secret. They spirit him away, name him Aniday, and make him
one of their own. Stuck forever as a child, Aniday grows in spirit, struggling
to remember the life and family he left behind. He also seeks to understand and
fit in this shadow land, as modern life encroaches upon both myth and nature.
In his place, the changelings leave a double, a boy who steals Henry’s life in
the world. This new Henry Day must adjust to a modern culture while hiding his
true identity from the Day family. But he can’t hide his extraordinary talent
for the piano (a skill the true Henry never displayed), and his dazzling
performances prompt his father to suspect that the son he has raised is an
imposter. As he ages the new Henry Day becomes haunted by vague but persistent
memories of life in another time and place, of a German piano teacher and his
prodigy. Of a time when he, too, had been a stolen child. Both Henry and Aniday
obsessively search for who they once were before they changed places in the
world.
The Stolen Child is a classic tale of leaving childhood and the search
for identity. With just the right mix of fantasy and realism, Keith Donohue has
created a bedtime story for adults and a literary fable of remarkable depth and
strange delights.
Book Reviews
BookBrowse The Stolen Child is one of those out-of-the-box type novels that tend to either miss by a mile or, like The Time Traveler's Wife, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, or The Life of Pi, hit a nerve with people and become tremendously popular. The Stolen Child's blend of fantasy and realism combined with a classic search for identity story should place it firmly in the latter category. Full Review (members only, 424 words).
Publishers Weekly
An impressive novel of outsiders whose feelings of alienation are more natural than supernatural.
Library Journal
A haunting, unusual first novel, The Stolen Child is recommended.
Kirkus Reviews
Take that, Bilbo Baggins! Donohue's sparkling debut especially delights because, by surrounding his fantasy with real-world, humdrum detail, he makes magic believable.
USA Today
Fascinating...Donohue paints a vivid picture of American life from the 1950s into the 1970s and the pressures on a boy who, in addition to not being entirely human, is growing up in the Vietnam War era, when attitudes toward sex, drugs, and patriotism were undergoing a sea change....Anidays's story is set in the cool forest where the forever children live off the lush land except for forays into town to steal supplies and perform random acts of mischief. It is a world threatened by civilization, an encroachment that pushes the present and former Henrys toward each other. Both sides of this story are poignant and beautifully told.
Entertainment Weekly
An ingenious, spirited allegory for adolescent angst, aging, the purpose of art, etc., that digs deep. Grade: A.
Scotland on Sunday
A welcome addition to the field of contemporary fantasy…sparklingly quirky... Overall it is a gently redemptive parable about becoming oneself.
Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife The Stolen Child is unsentimental and vividly imagined. Keith Donohue evokes the otherworldly with humor and the ordinary with wonder. I enjoyed it immensely.
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies—of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss—that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.
Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. But her mother is in rehab, and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. And when a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, her already-worn thread of faith begins to unravel.
When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in Norfolk. But when a child's bones are found on a desolate beach nearby, and Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson calls Galloway for help, Ruth finds herself in...
Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole –and the grown woman whose story is no less...
The Coral Thief, as riveting and beautifully rendered as Ghostwalk, Rebecca Stott’s first novel, is a provocative and tantalizing mix of history, philosophy, and suspense. It conjures up vividly both the feats of Napoleon and the accomplishments of those working without fame or...
I rarely read anything before this. Years ago I picked this one up and couldn't put it down. It changed me into a book nut. It was a wonderful ...
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I can't believe I waited so long to read this book. Shame on me. This book was wonderful, lyrical, entertaining - all the makings of a wonderful ...
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The book held so much for the reader but in the end I felt robbed. The evolution of Trudy was disturbing and somewhat insulting. She came across as ...
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Justice Department still has issues with Google Settlement(Feb 05 2010) The Department of Justice dealt a serious blow Thursday evening to the chances that the Google Book Search settlement will gain court approval later this...
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The Stolen Child
(members only, 424 words).
Publishers Weekly
Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife
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