A terrible event leaves Sean Phillips disfigured when he is only seventeen. In the weeks following the incident he creates an adventure game he calls the ''Trace Italian'', where players awake in an apocalyptic America and make their way to safety across an irradiated landscape, decision by difficult decision. The years pass and Sean lives a quiet life enriched by his games. But when a pair of teenage sweethearts try to seek the Trace in the real world their actions prove fatal, and Sean is forced to confront the dangers of his creation and its origins in his own troubled past.

A beguiling story of contingency, solitude and escape, Wolf in White Van is a heart-stopping debut from a musician and songwriter known for the transcendent power of his words.