Darnielle's prose is spare yet fervent, both distant and rawly exposed, making for an eerie, awkward and compelling novel that immediately demands a second read... as sad as it is beguiling
Guardian
[Written in] intense, skewed and lyrical prose. The weirdly wonderful Wolf in White Van is melancholy, clever, obsessive
‘Debut of the Year'
Independent
... Read more[An] arresting, enigmatic debut novel... a stunning meditation on the power of escape, and on the cat-and-mouse contest the self plays to deflect its own guilt
Ethan Gilsdorf
New York Times
[A book of] discomforting brilliance... sudden moments of true and good light are as rare as they are welcome, even wondrous. Captivating and terrifying
Randy Boyagoda
Financial Times
A disturbing slice of the modern psyche... creepy and fast-moving
The Times
Eerie, poetic, at times genuinely terrifying ... Darnielle's unforgettable first novel is like nothing else I've read
Paul Murray, author
Skippy Dies
A complex meditation... cryptic and then stunningly clear, microscopically specific and then audaciously grand. The words soothe for sentences at a time, then strike with blunt force
Slate
Wolf in White Van approaches the speculative and even the apocalyptic with a genuine and smart warmth - which doesn't mean I didn't also find it deliciously chilling
Daniel Handler ‘Book of the Year’
Wall Street Journal (European)
With delicacy, empathy and control, John Darnielle has crafted an indelible novel, a hymn for those who inhabit lonely universes, and a harbour for anyone who has sought refuge in a reality other than their own
Patrick deWitt, author
The Sisters Brothers
Darnielle's prose is strikingly good; it is not only lucid but startlingly effective at evoking the thoughts and emotions of his protagonist... a highly gifted writer; one to watch
Independent
John Darnielle's novel moves through the mind like a dark-windowed car through a sleepy neighborhood, quiet, mysterious, menacing, taking you places you will never, never get out of your head
Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) A meditation on monstrosity, isolation, escape and transformation, this trance of a novel lures us deep into the labyrinth of one young man's imagination. What we find there is alluring and feral, raw, unflinching and exquisite. John Darnielle adds 'novelist' to the long list of artistic undertakings at which he happens to be absolutely brilliant
Claire Vaye Watkins, author
Battleborn
Wolf in White Van is beautiful, enigmatic, and sad, and like every other brilliant thing John Darnielle has ever done, it seems to come from some fully imagined universe, of which we only get to see this haunting, enticing sliver. I utterly love it
J. Robert Lennon, author
See You in Paradise
As you read Wolf in White Van you waver between suspicions that the world itself is ill-made, and concern that the fundamental fault lies within our very brains. As for the writing, I'd go for anything else Darnielle writes like a shot
Helen Oyeyemi, author of
Boy, Snow, Bird
One of the finest works of fiction I have read in a long time... Darnielle sweeps his prose from scene to scene so elegantly... Stunning
Grantland
Intimate [and] involving... the emotional range is deep
New York Times
Like all "difficult" fiction, this novel carves out a niche for itself by refusing to pander or provide easy answers. Haunting
Alastair Mabbott
Herald
A technically competent debut. Its reverse-chronological narration achieves suspense; in its stronger moments, Darnielle's carefully elliptical prose style evokes with sensitivity the foggy hinterland between solipsistic melancholia and serious mental illness
Houman Barekat
TLS
Inspired
Justine Jordan
Guardian
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