First Impressions: When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

I was in the eighth grade when our history teacher told us that the Red Riding Hood story was a fable showcasing the wilful dominance of capitalism (the Wolf) over the innocent and kind ideology of Communism (Red Riding Hood). In that light, the turn of the story where the Wolf eats up the grandmother and then dresses up as her to wait for Red Riding Hood made me permanently wary of the concept of ‘welfare state’.

A fairy tale, in that sense, can do a lot.

When the Wolf Comes Home is a take-off on what the wolf represents in such fairy tales set in the context of a rather elaborate story. There’s a child with a father – both of whom have a past that may or may not involve dubious military experiments. One day the boy, around four or 5 years old, escapes the father and finds himself at the house of a young improv comedian who moonlights as a waitress in a dirty diner. She herself is grappling with some daddy issues. Against the backdrop of gore, shapeshifting creatures, surreal descriptions of thoughts becoming things, escape trials, frenzied road trips, blood moons going awry, etc. – both the characters' journeys remain the same. Their age and circumstances are different. But both find themselves on a road where they have to forgive the past, their fathers, themselves. And in a way, realizing that they’re all the same thing.

It is a dense and descriptive book and really well set up. I generally don’t like descriptions of dismemberment and all that. But here, the symbolism and foreshadowing are so well done that you start seeing all these details as part of a well-embroidered story. I did that the character development could have been better. The waitress, Jess, doesn’t become anything more than a sturdy human-table to support the story. And the little boy – I wondered if I would care for him as much as I did if he weren’t a child. Probably not.

But what the story lacks in the development of character profiles more than compensates in the atmospheric description of the landscapes. The desolation of LA and the loneliness in the wilderness mirror each other.

The contrast of the two different diners anchors the mood of the story really well also. When Jess is unencumbered but happy, she works in a filthy little place, indicating that there is dirt to be worked through. When Jess has finally realized the truth of all the murkiness, she is in a spotlessly clean diner. Sometimes the dissonance between the internal world of the protagonist and the external chaos is just a  signature move for her dream career – an improv artist…people who are trained to ‘Never Say No’.

The piece de resistance is the afterword, though.

The author talks about how the book and the various motifs in it come from his childhood. As he understood the motivations of his father, he also understood the frailties and enduring strengths of human nature. His father had several different jobs and changed his careers many times. The author’s investigation into the psyche of someone who wanted to live across different identities and worlds helped him understand a person’s relationship to change and commitment. And how does such a person exactly become or remain a father when that is the unchangeable element of one’s identity?   

While the story traverses several sub-plots, I thought it came together beautifully with this observation by the protagonist, and therefore the author.

“Maybe the true horror of the werewolf is that the change is never permanent. 

Maybe the true beauty of the butterfly is that it is.”