The Changeling is one of the founding texts in a genre of mythic, hallucinatory writing that has become far more common since its publication. I had never heard of it but its influence is quite clear if you enjoy this type of writing.

The Changeling is about Pearl, a young woman who has fled the isolated island home of her charismatic but domineering husband with their infant son. When Walker appears to take her home an accident leaves her alone amongst his family, including his twin and the many children he has adopted. Pearl finds her sense of self dissolving in the oppressive atmosphere of the family home and is increasingly haunted by the idea that her son is an imposter, a changeling.

It’s a deeply unsettling story and a challenging, atmospheric novel filled with charismatic but menacing characters. Pearl’s perception, and that of the reader experiencing the story through her eyes, is often uncertain and contradictory. Reality has a strange distorted, unreliable feel that increases as Pearl’s story (and her drinking) develop and she feels her ownership of her son, her body and her identity slipping away from her under the power of the family’s demanding and intrusive interactions.

There is a strikingly uncanny feeling to the characters and environment, or unheimlich to use the better German alternative, for there is no sense of home for Pearl and her surroundings and companions become increasingly alien and disquieting. The constant feeling of unease, even though it isn’t readily identifiable, is in part created by Williams’ clever use of the darker traditions of mythology and fairy tale. She is certainly well aware of the eerie effect that child-characters can create and the many children are deeply unpleasant, their cruelties enhanced by a dark, otherworldly quality that may be a delusion or a real consequence of their upbringing in this cold, hard family. Again this plays on a common trope in fables and fairy tales (and much horror writing!) and is accompanied by the strong animal theme that runs through the narrative where the characters are often given animal qualities through intense and sometimes violent imagery. Both children and animals, as well as Pearl’s slow feeling of vanishing, dwell on the idea of transformation and mutability and the effect that change has to bestow and remove agency and power.

From the moment Pearl is returned to the family island -having attempted to escape with her young son- she exists without independence of thought, ambition or direction. As if surging forwards on a relentless wave towards an unforgiving shore, her life endures only until "death...like a bee, buzzing around the mouth of the person it wants" manages to "get inside".
Pearl's persistent drinking creates a filter through which she experiences the world. Consequently the reader witnesses her decline like light refracted through raindrops on a window-sometimes clear, sometimes startling, often distorted or magnified. Moments glitter, sparkle and merge but the full picture is not always clear. What she lacks is purpose: "To become a woman was to become a question when as a child one was all swift and shining answer."
It is true that the 'tribe' of children on the island thrum with an almost audible vibrancy: "these children made their story, the story becoming daily more and more a living thing they could almost touch, a large fantastic butterfly, lying among them, a butterfly looking like a dark hand with outspread fingers gathering them together." They make Pearl part of their story.
Afraid that her own child, Sam, is a changeling, she is content to be adopted by them: they accept her without comment or expectation: "They looked at Pearl as though they could see her neurons going out right then, in style, light bulbs visible, snapping and cracking". Furthermore she feels an alliance that is lacking elsewhere: "Children were like drunkards really, determined to talk at great length and with great incoherence."
The picture Williams paints is tangible. An isolated and hostile island where "the sun continues to shine maniacally" and "stone walls meandered everywhere...ended often in enclosures from which nothing could escape" whilst "rain covered the glass with artificial night like a dark archangel." Marooned amongst this, Pearl feels only that she is "renting a space here in this life". That her time "belonged to her no more than the person who would occupy it next."

In truth, I'm not convinced I understood this book; that I fully grasped the message. Beginning with very straight storytelling, the narrative fragments and becomes unconventional as Pearl's grip on reality slides away from her (and the reader). In her introduction, Karen Russell explains that this tale "is not a mirror: it's a window". Having said that, Williams' ruminations about the value of human life and experience have a slow burn and I'm certain that in the future I will catch myself reflecting on her musings. At one point, Pearl states: "Everything is pretty understandable if you take away what people do to you and the shapes they assume and what they say" and perhaps by creating this soup of observations, rich metaphors and sensory experiences, the author demonstrates that very understanding to us.

Very strange and rather dark, unsettling and eerie. Alcoholic Pearl lives amongst a commune of feral children.