His formative fantasies were of a darker version of pulp icon Conan the Barbarian, who haunts the book like some terrible spirit animal. It would have been pat to make the game solely the result of the trauma, but Darnielle complicates it by sowing bitter seeds in Sean’s childhood. We learn early on that one was badly hurt, the other killed, in some way related to the game.Īfter his accident, Sean envisions Trace Italian in a hallucinatory scene rendered like Carlos Castaneda writing the Book of Revelation. Until nearly the end, he withholds the cause of Sean’s injury and the significance of two players named Lance and Carrie. Sean’s recollection tacks backward in time, through hospitals and courtrooms and sad domestic scenes, toward the ground zero of his accident.ĭarnielle mentioned Borgesand Robbe-Grillet in his INDY interview, and he shares their fondness for evocative absence. Otherwise, the suspense derives not from what will happen but what already has. The best of INDY Week’s fiercely independent journalism about the Triangle delivered straight to your inbox.
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