When the Wolf Comes Home

The creature that Calvert transforms into is a symbol of the boy’s fear and embodies familial cycles of violence. From the very first chapter of the novel, Calvert is a shape-shifter, one that can suddenly turn into a wolf, a bear, a giant spider, or something else entirely at a moment’s notice. However, the novel gradually reveals that Calvert can never choose the form he takes. Instead, his form is always chosen by the boy, based on something he fears. In the first chapter, for instance, he sees a picture of the Big Bad Wolf in his storybook of fairy tales. Calvert therefore transforms into a wolf. While in Margie’s house, the boy sees a movie poster of a giant spider. This causes Calvert to turn into one when he tracks the boy down to the house.

Calvert’s inability to control his transformation signifies his inability to control the boy’s emotions. Since he has chosen to exert abusive control over the boy, the boy has grown up in fear of his father. Inevitably, whenever the boy becomes afraid of something, he associates it with the fear he feels around his father. This culminates in the form that Calvert takes at Cookie’s condo while the boy is experiencing vivid nightmares. Calvert continues shifting from form to form before settling on a nightmare cloud made entirely of mouths. These mouths represent the voice of Calvert, which has constantly told the boy that he is too bad and dangerous to live.