So, you’re looking for something different to read this summer.  Have I got the book for you.  Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow is simply the best epic poem about lycanthropes that you’ll read this year.

Come back! What?  You’re not a fan of werewolf stories or long poems?  Generally, neither am I.  On the poetry front, Barlow’s verse is not rhymed or metered.  It’s not Beowulf.  It certainly doesn’t have the formal constraints that Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions rigidly imposed on its self.  Instead the free verse feels stripped away of everything that’s not central to advancing the story in a timely manner.  The brakes have been removed from the narrative.

The story revolves around Anthony, a down on his luck schlub who gets a job in L.A. as a county dog catcher.  We are introduced to rival packs of werewolves around the L.A. area.  Some gangs are criminals; some gangs are white collar businessman led by a lawyer.  I suspect that Barlow is trying to tell us something. The fighting within gangs and between the rival gangs can be fairly graphic and bloody.

Sharp Teeth is not simply a horror novel/poem.   It’s also a book about modern relationships, urban life, the single-mindedness of enterprises both legal and illegal, and survival in the modern age.  At its heart, Sharp Teeth also tells the love story of Anthony and the woman/werewolf sent to keep an eye on him.

Anthony in love is unlikely

in its grace,

like a drunk with a magic trick.

There’s no reason it should work

but it does.

Like Anthony in love, Sharp Teeth just works.

An aside: While reading the novel, I went to see the L.A. punk band X at the Variety Playhouse (30th Anniversary tour?! Yikes!).  One of the songs that they played was their classic The Hungry Wolf.  The very next day, I began a chapter that had a line from the lyrics as an introduction.  I love when things like that happen.  I’m just telling you this story so I have an excuse to add the song to this post.  Check it out.  The vibe in the song is similar to the mood of the novel.  Says me.

The Hungry Wolf - X

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