The Wild Things

Revisiting Maurice Sendak’s seminal kids’ book, Where the Wild Things Are—both in anticipation of the new movie and a new kid—I found it profoundly dark and oddly spacious. Not much about Max’s time with the Things is revealed. Eggers, who cowrote the screenplay with Spike Jonze for the film adaptation, steps in to fill those gaps. In his novel, Max is a wild kid in a broken home who can’t explain his dangerous outbursts of rage. After pushing his divorceé mother one step too far, he flees to the woods, and discovers a sailboat bobbing in the bay. He figures he’ll sail to see his father in a not-so-distant city, but he ends up on the Wild Things’ island. There he encounters English-speaking brutes who live in a bizarre landscape (multicolored meadows, lava rivers flowing underground). When they threaten to eat him, Max declares himself king, only to have to persistently defend the crown.

Eggers strikes the perfect tone for a young-adult novel that will likely be read more often by adults. As Max navigates the politics of the island, the story gets progressively creepier, the Wild Things more impulsive, and the most dangerous thing Max can do is hurt someone’s feelings. It’s still Eggers, so that means the humor will always be there in the dark, but when Max finally decides to leave the island, it’s unclear whether there will be any light for his path.

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