The Changeling

by Joy Williams

  © ANNE DALTON

  JOY WILLIAMS is the author of four novels, five story collections, and the book of essays Ill Nature. She’s been nominated for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, and Laramie, Wyoming.

  KAREN RUSSELL is the author of the novel Swamplandia, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; the story collections Vampires in the Lemon Grove and St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves; and the novella Sleep Donation. In 2013, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am very grateful to Yaddo, to the Guggenheim Foundation, and to the National Foundation for the Arts for their assistance.

  —JOY WILLIAMS

  BOOKS BY JOY WILLIAMS

  NOVELS

  State of Grace

  The Changeling

  Breaking and Entering

  The Quick and the Dead

  STORY COLLECTIONS

  Escapes

  Taking Care

  Honored Guest

  The Visiting Privilege: New & Collected Stories

  Ninety-Nine Stories of God

  NON-FICTION

  Ill Nature

  The Florida Keys

  Copyright © 1978 Joy Williams. Previously published by Doubleday, 1978, and Fairy Tale Review Press, 2008.

  Tin House edition © 2018

  Introduction © 2018 by Karen Russell

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact Tin House Books, 2617 NW Thurman St., Portland, OR 97210.

  Published by Tin House Books, Portland, Oregon, and

  Brooklyn, New York

  Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Names: Williams, Joy, 1944- author.

  Title: The changeling / by Joy Williams.

  Description: Portland, OR : Tin House Books, [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017039366 | ISBN 9781941040898 (hardcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781941040904 (ebook)

  Classification: LCC PS3573.I4496 C48 2017 | DDC 813/.54--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039366

  Interior design by Diane Chonette

  www.tinhouse.com