Long-listed for the 2014 National Book Award in fiction "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.
This book is a wonderful. It truly is a stunner and a gem. One that once you pick it up you will come to have the utmost respect for John Darnielle. He is a magnificent writer who is capable of diving into human emotion, connection, and empathy.
I must admit this book did take me awhile to read. At times I found myself stopping after a sentence, paragraph, or statement and really thinking about it in depth. I was transported to this other realm while reading this novel and became so completely immersed in the main character's Sean's story and his game Trace Italian.
This story does jump around as Sean describes the fantasy of Trace Italian and then his reality. What I loved most about this story was that it is told backwards, where the reader finds more about the case and what happened in Sean's accident that started it all. It was easy to follow and interesting. I wanted to know what happened, both in the court case and his injury. I cared about Sean as a character and wanted to see him happy.
