Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow

Reviews

Now, this was a book I expected to hate as soon as I opened it up and realized it was written in free verse. Sharp Teeth (2008) by Toby Barlow is a very unlikely debut novel — 308 pages of blank verse about warring werewolf packs in Los Angeles. With love story. I’d love to know how he managed to sell it to his agent.

But much to my surprise, once I got past the first few pages of “I can’t believe I’m reading a book-length werewolf poem,” I settled into the story and followed it along with enjoyment. The advantage to blank verse is that it doesn’t stand out — no bad rhymes or strained meter to distract the reader from the story.  It permits the author a bit more leeway, perhaps, to wax poetic when he feels like it, but it can also read like a gritty crime novel with a lot of extra white space on one side of the page.

He heads to the restroom,
turns the greasy door handle, walks in.
Two stalls.
“Hey, baby —” he says.
She comes out of the stall, a dog.
“Aw, hey, baby. Don’t cha think —”
She jumps for him. Angry. Teeth bared.
“Oh my god no.”
As a dog, he could take her, but she’s too far ahead
she’d kill him quick if he tried to change now.
“Fuck!” She gets his arm and doesn’t hold back.  Bites through.
And the blood comes fast. (p. 103)

I didn’t expect to like Sharp Teeth, and in fact if I’d had anything else to read in the house, I probably would have returned it to the library unread. But with all my books packed and the library closed for the county fair, I found myself desperate enough for reading material to give it a shot — and much to my surprise, I enjoyed it.  Sharp Teeth isn’t going to be everyone’s thing, and in the end it isn’t any more “literary” than a paperback supernatural crime novel, but then again, that’s exactly what I liked about it.

drupagliassotti @ May 4, 2008