The New Yorker's just released an excerpt from Dave Eggers' novelization of Where the Wild Things Are:

Max caught sight of his wolf suit hanging on the back of the closet door. He hadn’t worn it in weeks. He’d gotten it for Christmas three years before, the last one with both his parents, and he’d immediately put it on, and kept it on for the rest of school break. It had been too big then, but his mom had pinned it and taped it to make it work until he grew into it.

Now he and it were the perfect size, and he wore it when he knew he was alone in the house and could wrestle the dog or jump and growl without anyone watching. Although the house was now full—his mother in the kitchen making dinner, Claire in the TV room pretending to do her homework, Gary on the couch in the living room—as Max stared at the wolf suit it seemed to be calling to him. It’s time, it was saying to Max. He wasn’t sure this was actually the right time to put it on, but then again he usually felt better wearing it. He felt faster, sleeker, more powerful.

On the other hand, he could stay in bed. He could stay in the fort, the red blanket casting a red light on everything inside. He could miss dinner and stay there all night. All weekend. He had some thinking to do, about this news about the sun expiring and the resulting void inhaling the earth, and he wanted to steer clear of Claire, who might yet want retribution, and he was angry at his mom, who seemed to forget for hours at a time that he existed. And any time he spent in his room was time he didn’t have to spend with Gary.

So he had a choice. Would he stay behind the curtain and think about things, marinate in his own confusion, or would he put on his white fur suit and howl and scratch and make it known who was boss of this house and of all the world known and unknown?

Read the whole thing here.