Wolf in White Van – John Darnielle
The novel opens with aftermath of a gruesome accident that leaves its protagonist and first person narrator, Sean, severely disfigured and isolated. Sean’s description of how the events transpire in an infinite loop is a precursor to the structure of the book. The gruesome accident acts as the climatic event of the book, with Sean’s life being explored both before and after throughout the novel. Amongst a sea of childhood memories, painkiller induced hallucinations and terse narration aspects of the accident and what lead up to it are revealed in reverse. The novel then concludes climatically with the accident narrated by an adolescent Sean. By this stage though the audience have already experienced the pain of the accident through Sean’s memories and have fair idea of the accident itself. In its gradual unravelling of this climax, Wolf in White Van shifts it’s emphasis away from the event itself and unto the protagonist’s emotional struggle.

 

Initially devised as a coping mechanism whilst bedridden, Sean envisions a dystopian role-play game The Trace Italian, which later becomes his livelihood. Within the confines of this mail-based game Sean provides not only himself but also a number players an escape from reality. The inclusion of this game within the narration lends the book a ‘pseudo transmedia’ structure. In times of heightened anxiety or stress Sean’s narration will disappear to be replaced by moves from his role-play game. It is through this elliptical nature the audience come to understand the games importance in his life and how it’s ability to shield him from the pained memories that much of the novel is comprised of. The audience is not privy to Sean’s true emotions and like him are presented a crafted reality to forget the pain and confusion. Not only are the readers experiencing Sean’s emotions but also those of the numerous players who also use Trace Italian as a refuge from aspects of their own lives.

The narrative is also punctuated with small passages that players send Sean to justifying their moves throughout the game. The passages are often nonsensical left vague and unexplained; the audience left grappling with their meaning alongside Sean who attempts to make sense of them allowing players to advance in the game. These jarring interruptions enhance the database like nature of the novel, lending external voices to Sean’s first person recount of events.

Sean forms a narrative for the players of The Trace Italian, out of what is essentially a database of turn and their possible outcomes. Sean becomes an active part in the interface the players use to access the database that is The Trace Italian as a narrative. The one anomaly in its narrative form is that it’s impossible for the game to be completed. Sean has constructed the game in a way that a player can exist within The Trace Italian database without ever reaching the games end. This database structure mirrors the novels construction; vast arrays of material all drawn from the database of Sean’s mind to the form a narrative.