The Wild Things:
A Novel by
Dave Eggers.
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To buy
The Wild Things,
click here.
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Click here to read an excerpt from the book in the New Yorker.
For information about our Style Your Wild Thing Contest, please go here.
For press inquries, please e-mail press@mcsweeneys.net.
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The Book.
The Wild Things, based loosely on the storybook by Maurice Sendak and the screenplay co-written with Spike Jonze, is about the confusions of a boy, Max, making his way in a world he can't control. His father is gone, his mother is spending time with a younger boyfriend, his sister is becoming a teenager and no longer has interest in him. At the same time, he finds himself capable of startling acts of wildness — he wears a wolf suit, bites his mom, can't always control his outbursts. During a fight at home, Max flees and runs away into the woods. He finds a boat there, jumps in, and ends up on the open sea, destination unknown. He lands on the island of the Wild Things, and soon he becomes their king. But things get complicated when Max realizes that the Wild Things want as much from him as he wants from them. Funny, dark, and alive, The Wild Things is a timeless and time-tested tale for all ages.
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The Author.
Dave Eggers is the author of six previous books, including his most recent, Zeitoun, a nonfiction account a Syrian-American immigrant and his extraordinary experience during Hurricane Katrina and What Is the What, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award. That book, about Valentino Achak Deng, a survivor of the civil war in southern Sudan, gave birth to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, run by Mr. Deng and dedicated to building secondary schools in southern Sudan. Eggers is the founder and editor of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco that produces a quarterly journal, a monthly magazine (The Believer), and Wholphin, a quarterly DVD of short films and documentaries. In 2002, with Nínive Calegari he co-founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth in the Mission District of San Francisco. Local communities have since opened sister 826 centers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, Seattle, and Boston. In 2004, Eggers taught at the University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and there, with Dr. Lola Vollen, he co-founded Voice of Witness, a series of books using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. A native of Chicago, Eggers graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in journalism. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children.
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Praise.
"Once Max reaches the island of the beasts, Eggers goes for broke. We get a writhing Technicolor landscape of carnivorous vines, lava beds, mini-tornadoes, mutant snakes, and, of course, the beasts themselves, a motley bundle of brawn and neuroses.... The real question, when it comes to literature, is whether a particular author is interested in hustling us through a breakneck plot (a la Dan Brown) or investigating the internal lives of his or her creations. The best books—and I happily include The Wild Things on this list—manage to do both.... Eggers has written a book for readers of all ages, without dumbing down his prose. But his highest achievement is in having found a fresh way to tell us a story we already know so well, about the monstrous forces of love and hate that mark every childhood—and pursue us howling into adulthood."
—Steve Almond, The Boston Globe
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"Dave Eggers has created a novel like childhood itself: sometimes weird, sometimes dark, and full of wonder ... Like the original, this is far from the cozy world kids are often fed, but it has real heart—Eggers uses simple but superbly effective prose to suggest that childhood has to be lived without cosseting for us to grow up with any semblance of a normal personality."
—Doug Johnstone, the Independent
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"Eggers makes us privy to Max's thoughts, fears and desires. He lets us feel the boy's confusion and horror as anger results in shocking behavior ... [Wild Things] is not only a wonderful read, but a lovely product. McSweeney's is known for the care it takes in producing its books. From the cover illustrations by Rachel Sumpter to the quality paper and printing, to the informative postscript by the author/publisher, this does Sendak's original picture book proud. (It's for all ages, by the way, not just
for kids.)"
—Bernie Goedhart, Montreal Gazette
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