  | I REVIEW BOOKS ON THE LAST SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH The debut novel by Mountain Goats lead singer and songwriter John Darnielle is extremely thoughtful and engrossing: telling the insular tale of a young man who’s living in the wake of an ‘accident’ that’s left his face horribly disfigured. I was introduced to the “play-by-mail” concept/trend here, and I’m always fascinated when I discover little worlds like that which I’d completely missed the boat on, even in retrospect. The funny thing is, I’m not even a Mountain Goats fan in the slightest. In fact, I would say that they’re overrated to be totally honest. But I’m always intrigued when an artist best known in one field transitions to another. And so now I would like to end on this sentence: John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van is the music-to-book pipeline in the same way Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time” is indicative of the movie-to-music path. Talk amongst yourselves. |
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,395 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,397 ⫸
⫷ MOVIE #1,395 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,397 ⫸
Wolf in White Van is the first novel by the American author and singer-songwriter John Darnielle. Wolf in White Van tells the story of Sean Phillips, a reclusive game designer whose face has been severely disfigured. One reviewer characterizes Sean as someone "steeped in video games, bad sci-fi movies, and Conan the Barbarian comic books". 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. A fictional play-by-mail role-playing game called Trace Italian figures prominently in the novel. It was released on September 12, 2014.
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