The Wild Things
Updated: Aug 8
I grew up, from a very young age, a child of divorced parents. I lived in Tulsa with my mother and stepfather, an emotionally stunted man who was incapable of expressing himself verbally and was therefore permanently angry with everyone and everything. My mother was not in a position to do anything about this. I lived outside, and when that wasn't possible, I lived in my room with the door shut. I loved my father, but he was a million miles away in Indianapolis, and summer visits meant having a blast, but also meant having to deal with my father asking the one question no child of divorced parents ever wants to hear: Do you want to come live with me? This was no simple "yes" or "no" question, and answering "no" meant having to answer a lot more questions, each one more difficult than the last. Frankly, it was emotional blackmail, though I didn’t know it then. All I knew was that those conversations were excruciating. Choosing which parent to live with is something a child of seven, eight, nine years of age simply can't handle emotionally—at least I couldn't—and finding the words to answer all the questions that came after I said "no" was simply too much for me.
I say all this not because those who don't have similar experiences can't relate to Dave Eggers's The Wild Things—or the very-closely-related Spike Jonze-directed film Where The Wild Things Are, with whom Eggers co-wrote the script—but because I feel my personal history makes me particularly sensitive to the central theme of the story and the issues its protagonist faces. Both film and book are emotionally powerful—and emotionally devastating—and while I unequivocally loved the film, it is the book's omniscient perspective, allowing the reader inside Max's head, that movingly realizes his struggles to tame and satisfy the beasts. It is precisely the gulf between Max's youth and the complex issues he's grappling with that makes this story so compelling for me. Considering my childhood, I am, perhaps predictably, stressed by Max's ordeal, but I’m also comforted by its resolution, such as it is. Though it took me decades to forgive and forget, I made it out alive, largely no worse for wear, and so, too, has Max. If only we all had a boat, calm waters, and an endless horizon to sail into once in a while …
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