The Wishing Game

Each part of the novel opens with a chapter describing an excerpt from Jack’s first book, The House on Clock Island. This motif supports the theme of The Value of Stories. These interludes create the illusion that the events of The Wishing Game are another of Jack’s carefully crafted narratives, mixing reality with literature to guide the reader and hint at Jack’s masterminding of events. Often, the interludes mimic the plot developments of the chapters that follow. In the interlude that opens Part 1, for instance, Astrid discovers that the lighthouse where the Mastermind lives is active again, and the following chapters show how Lucy (and the rest of the world) learn that Jack is writing again and is hosting a contest in all points similar to the challenges his characters meet in his novels.

In Part 5, the last two excerpts are individual chapters: Chapter 28 and Chapter 32. In Chapter 28, the text summarizes the events of The Secret of Clock Island and ends with a quotation implying that the Mastermind let Molly win. This implies that Jack’s plans for Lucy (whom Molly represents) have effectively followed the course he outlined, planned, and worked for, paralleling and echoing Lucy’s choice to accept his offer with a passage in one of his books. In Chapter 32, the only line reads, “Of course, the Mastermind had let Lucy win” (265). Combining Jack’s books into the novel, the text entwines both stories to reflect what Jack told Lucy and the other competitors: “‘All of us, I think, are hoping one of my books will change our lives again. The stories write us, you see’” (118). Jack’s new book changes Lucy’s life, but it isn’t a textual book in this case. It's the narrative that Lucy is meant to live out in her real life during the contest and “write” her into a new role: being Christopher’s mother.