Wolf in White Van

A terrible event leaves Sean Phillips disfigured when he is only seventeen. In the weeks following the incident he creates an adventure game he calls the 'Trace Italian', where players awake in an apocalyptic America and make their way to safety across an irradiated landscape, decision by difficult decision. The years pass and Sean lives a quiet life enriched by his games. But when a pair of teenage sweethearts try to seek the Trace in the real world their actions prove fatal, and Sean is forced to confront the dangers of his creation and its origins in his own troubled past.A beguiling story of contingency, solitude and escape, Wolf in White Van is a heart-stopping debut from a musician and songwriter known for the transcendent power of his words.

Long-listed for National Book Award 2014 (UK)

Darnielle's prose is spare yet fervent, both distant and rawly exposed, making for an eerie, awkward and compelling novel that immediately demands a second read... as sad as it is beguiling Guardian
[Written in] intense, skewed and lyrical prose. The weirdly wonderful Wolf in White Van is melancholy, clever, obsessive -- ‘Debut of the Year' Independent
[An] arresting, enigmatic debut novel... a stunning meditation on the power of escape, and on the cat-and-mouse contest the self plays to deflect its own guilt -- Ethan Gilsdorf New York Times
[A book of] discomforting brilliance... sudden moments of true and good light are as rare as they are welcome, even wondrous. Captivating and terrifying -- Randy Boyagoda Financial Times
A disturbing slice of the modern psyche... creepy and fast-moving The Times
Eerie, poetic, at times genuinely terrifying ... Darnielle's unforgettable first novel is like nothing else I've read -- Paul Murray, author Skippy Dies
A complex meditation... cryptic and then stunningly clear, microscopically specific and then audaciously grand. The words soothe for sentences at a time, then strike with blunt force Slate
Wolf in White Van approaches the speculative and even the apocalyptic with a genuine and smart warmth - which doesn't mean I didn't also find it deliciously chilling -- Daniel Handler ‘Book of the Year’ Wall Street Journal (European)
With delicacy, empathy and control, John Darnielle has crafted an indelible novel, a hymn for those who inhabit lonely universes, and a harbour for anyone who has sought refuge in a reality other than their own -- Patrick deWitt, author The Sisters Brothers
Darnielle's prose is strikingly good; it is not only lucid but startlingly effective at evoking the thoughts and emotions of his protagonist... a highly gifted writer; one to watch Independent
John Darnielle's novel moves through the mind like a dark-windowed car through a sleepy neighborhood, quiet, mysterious, menacing, taking you places you will never, never get out of your head -- Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket)
A meditation on monstrosity, isolation, escape and transformation, this trance of a novel lures us deep into the labyrinth of one young man's imagination. What we find there is alluring and feral, raw, unflinching and exquisite. John Darnielle adds 'novelist' to the long list of artistic undertakings at which he happens to be absolutely brilliant -- Claire Vaye Watkins, author Battleborn
Wolf in White Van is beautiful, enigmatic, and sad, and like every other brilliant thing John Darnielle has ever done, it seems to come from some fully imagined universe, of which we only get to see this haunting, enticing sliver. I utterly love it -- J. Robert Lennon, author See You in Paradise
As you read Wolf in White Van you waver between suspicions that the world itself is ill-made, and concern that the fundamental fault lies within our very brains. As for the writing, I'd go for anything else Darnielle writes like a shot -- Helen Oyeyemi, author of Boy, Snow, Bird
One of the finest works of fiction I have read in a long time... Darnielle sweeps his prose from scene to scene so elegantly... Stunning Grantland
Intimate [and] involving... the emotional range is deep New York Times
Like all "difficult" fiction, this novel carves out a niche for itself by refusing to pander or provide easy answers. Haunting -- Alastair Mabbott Herald
A technically competent debut. Its reverse-chronological narration achieves suspense; in its stronger moments, Darnielle's carefully elliptical prose style evokes with sensitivity the foggy hinterland between solipsistic melancholia and serious mental illness -- Houman Barekat TLS
Inspired -- Justine Jordan Guardian

JOHN DARNIELLE is a writer, composer, guitarist, and vocalist for the band The Mountain Goats; he is widely considered one of the best lyricists of his generation. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and son.

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