The title Wolf in White Van is a reference to the practice of backmasking, as the phrase 'wolf in white van' can allegedly be heard when the Larry Norman song 'Six, Sixty, Six' is played in reverse. Wolf in White Van received positive reviews on release and was nominated for the 2014 National Book Award. The novel has been described as a 'meditation on the power of escape,' exploring the escapist qualities of fantasy fiction and role-playing games, particularly as a way to cope with trauma.

A fictional play-by-mail role-playing game called Trace Italian figures prominently in the novel. The plot, which is told non-chronologically, alternates among Sean's childhood, adolescence, and adulthood to describe the circumstances surrounding the incident that disfigured him. One reviewer characterizes Sean as someone 'steeped in video games, bad sci-fi movies, and Conan the Barbarian comic books'. Wolf in White Van tells the story of Sean Phillips, a reclusive game designer whose face has been severely disfigured. Beautifully written and unexpectedly moving, John Darnielle’s audacious and gripping debut novel is a marvel of storytelling brio and genuine literary delicacy.Wolf in White Van is the first novel by the American author and singer-songwriter John Darnielle. 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.īrilliantly 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. But when they take their play into the real world, disaster strikes, and Sean is called to account for it. Lance and Carrie are high school students from Florida, explorers of the Trace. As the creator of Trace Italian - a text-based, roleplaying 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. 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. Isolated by a disfiguring injury since the age of 17, Sean Phillips crafts imaginary worlds for strangers to play in. Welcome to Trace Italian, a game of strategy and survival! You may now make your first move.

Wolf in white van by john darnielle