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Welcome to Trace Italian, a game of strategy and survival! You may now make your first move. Isolated by a disfiguring injury since the age of seventeen, Sean Phillips crafts imaginary worlds for strangers to play in. From his small apartment in southern California, he orchestrates fantastic adventures where possibilities, both dark and bright, open in the boundaries between the real and the imagined. As the creator of Trace Italian-a text-based, role-playing game played through the mail-Sean guides players from around the world through his intricately imagined terrain, which they navigate and explore, turn by turn, seeking sanctuary in a ravaged, savage future America. Lance and Carrie are high school students from Florida, explorers of the Trace. But when they take their play into the real world, disaster strikes, and Sean is called to account for it. In the process, he is pulled back through time, tunneling toward the moment of his own self-inflicted departure from the world in which most people live. Brilliantly constructed, Wolf in White Van unfolds in reverse until we arrive at both the beginning and the climax: the event that has shaped so much of Sean's life. Beautifully written and unexpectedly moving, John Darnielle's audacious and gripping debut novel is a marvel of storytelling brio and genuine literary delicacy.… (more)
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If Iain Banks had collaborated with the Strugatsky Brothers to reimagine the world of 𝘙𝘰𝘢𝘥𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘗𝘪𝘤𝘯𝘪𝘤, this novel may’ve sounded very similar. Not to take anything away from the originality of this work—it’s stunning and every bit as engaging as Banks’ early works or the Strugatskys’ sci-fi fare. All from the frontman of the Mountain Goats, who writes amazing lyrics, sometimes for concept albums, so it’s no surprise Mr. Darnielle can spin a yarn. However, to have a unique voice, not bore the shit out of me, and keep me guessing until the end (what the hell is Trace Italian, anyway?) is another feat usually reserved for novelists and novelists alone.
Also loved the packaging and layout of the thing, which I normally don’t bother mentioning in these mini-impressions. But, you know, a great job all around deserves, on all fronts—writing style, plot, book design—all possible accolades.
John is great. John is emotional. John is always fucking things up. John’s a mess! I love John!
I wasn’t sure he could pull off a novel though. I’ve had limited experiences with lyricists I love writing novels – really just Jost Ritter‘s Bright’s Passage, which I actively disliked. I love John and I love his lyrics but I just wasn’t sure I wanted to spend hours and hours in his head.
As it turns out, I do! As it turns out, John has got some serious chops all around. Wolf in a White Van wasn’t a “Mountain Goats Novel,” in which everyone is drunk all the time and making terrible decisions and feeling sad and defeated about it. Don’t get me wrong – all of those things happened but there was also a very rich, unique, and affecting storyline underneath it all. This book astounded me.
I thought this was a thoughtful book, but it never gave me enough information to satisfy. I think the author is trying to get across the point that people don't often understand their own actions, especially those that are spur-of-the-moment, let alone the actions of anyone else. I don't disagree with that message, but I would have liked more factual information, especially on what the two players in the game thought they were doing.
I wish I could have connected more with this story and with Sean as well. There is much about music, old movies and other cultural references which, maybe because I am not a gamer, I could not relate.
The book is structured so that the ending is basically told first and the present told last. There are many references along the way so that the ending, which is really the beginning, is not a shock.
Wow. This book has just – surprised me. I just – wow. I’ve been reading so many good books and giving out such favourable reviews lately you guys are going to think
It is also very different. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, instead it was something much better, something intriguing, suspenseful and unlike anything else I have ever read. And it just left me wondering, trying to turn over such an unfathomable thing in my mind.
At the age of seventeen, Sean suffers a lifechanging and disfiguring injury that isolates him from the rest of the world. In hospital he began to write and create a whole new imaginary world, a text based game where players subscribe and receive their turns by mail. The world exists only in his – and their – minds. The game takes place in a futuristic America that has been ravaged by radioactive poisoning where players are seeking a safe location called Trace Italian. When two high school students take the game out into the real world a tragedy occurs and Sean is called to account for it. Through the novel the readers are taken backwards in time, through the progression and creation of the game, through Sean’s time in hospital, back to that moment that ultimately decided Sean’s future.
I read this in a day and a half. It’s not long, but it was difficult to get into at first until I became accustomed to Darnielle’s writing style. There is no clear beginning and end to this story; we are dropped into a memory, knowing that something terrible has happened to Sean but not really sure what just yet. That is revealed over time. The slow reveal can be excruciating to a demanding reader like myself, but I remained patient. I wandered through Sean’s memories, his stories, his game. I tried to understand him, and my first reaction was to sympathise with him, but my feelings changed along the course of the novel, while still trying to understand. I can imagine how his parents were so frustrated, because like me they lacked understanding, they wanted answers to a question they probably weren’t going to get, but I still couldn’t believe some of the things they said. The construction of this novel is irregular and unconventional but it all still makes sense and it suits the story. We work backwards, but its not always linear. There was every opportunity to be confused but somehow it all made sense.
The two high school students, Lance and Carrie, who take their play of Sean’s game out of the imaginative realm and into the real world are interesting catalysts for Sean’s backward train of thought, but this was never about them. It is where the lines between fantasy and reality blur for Sean, but the game was never the problem. The game seems to have been his salvation. And it’s not what has happened that’s surprising or shocking, because we know from the start it was something bad, it’s more the intricate details of it all, the things we don’t often think about. It’s also very hard to talk about without spoilers. The nature of this book and its heavy content means it won’t be for everyone, however there is a lot to be found here. There were times when I would reread paragraphs or whole pages, even once I’d finished, trying to wrap my head around the situation. Trying – and failing – to imagine what life was, and is, like for Sean. It’s difficult to process.
It’s not easy to stump me. This novel has done exactly that. I’m still sitting here wondering. I got sucked into it and then it spat me out at the end and I am still wondering. It is nothing short of brilliant, I just wish there was more to the answer. But maybe I am looking for something that does not exist.
The title refers to back masking in rock records. Legend holds that if one plays seemingly benign records backwards evil and satanic messages can become apparent. It seems that Darnielle has taken this motif to an extreme by laying out his timeline for the novel in reverse. Unfortunately, this tends to confuse the overall reading experience without adding much to the story. It seems reasonable that this novel might have been more effective if read backward because then Sean moves from an almost hopeless situation to one of independence and redemption.
An exploration of the memories of Sean, a man disfigured in a terrible teenage accident, he spends his time piecing together intricate worlds for other people to explore; the post-apocalyptic Trace Italian, among other old fashioned play be mail fantasy games, he shares his vision and imagination with others only to have, once again, tragedy strike as a pair of kids try to bring Seans' world into their real lives, with deadly results. The Trace Italian, with its vision of a devastated future America with a promise, however impossible, of a perfect world hidden in its interior strikes me as particularly apt, a vision of the world many of us live in. An extremely introspective novel, Sean is an unreliable narrator as he considers how the choices he made has effected his life and the lives of others; like a "Choose Your Own Adventure Book" or a roleplaying game, every choice we make can have dire, wonderful, unimagined consequences; what would happen if things went a different way? Wolf in White Van is packed with wonder, pain, and sadness, intricate details which will reward another reading, I feel.
How our memory haunts our imagination, our inner lives and our relationships with others, how our choices make us, and if there is any way we can make better choices, all resonate through the novel without overpowering Sean's story, and Darnielle's masterful descriptions. Reading it after terrible tragedy has stricken my own life, Darnielle's language and thoughtfulness actually brought tears to me eyes. What new perspectives and ideas will I find in the next exploration?
at-least-the-writing-was-good, awardwinner, currently-reading, made-me-sad, mixed-feelings, not-to-my-taste, thought-provoking
The conceit of the novel is interesting enough. It is a story told in
But the conceit doesn't quite work. It doesn't quite pay off. Suspense is poorly managed throughout, characters are left unduly (or unbelievably) opaque, and Darnielle doesn't quite deliver Sean's confrontation between reality and fiction in a convincing or compelling way. There is not enough information offered to understand any of Sean's relationships with others, be they his parents, his players, his (former) friends, or himself.
If that is the point--that we really can't understand why anyone chooses what they choose, and that most people can't even explain why they choose what they do--then I guess we've rewound and are left back at the beginning of the tape with more questions and even fewer answers. Probably that is the point of the novel. As I reader I do not mind being left without an answer generally, but in this case the characters were too shallow for me to care about, and so the "is that are there is?" finale was a special annoyance. In the final analysis, largely a WOMFT.
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