Sharp Teeth

While Los Angeles is being terrorized by rival gangs of werewolves, a goodhearted dogcatcher and his werewolf girlfriend get caught up in the struggle for survival. An ancient race of lycanthropes survives in modern L.A. and its numbers are growing as packs convert the city's downtrodden into their fold. Stuck in the middle are a local dogcatcher and the woman he loves, whose secret past haunts her as she fights a bloody one-woman battle to save their relationship. Sharp Teeth is a novel-in-verse that blends epic themes with dark humour, dogs playing cards, crystal meth labs, and acts of heartache and betrayal in Southern California.

About the Author :
Toby Barlow is an Executive Director at the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson and a contributor to n+1 and the Huffington Post. Sharp Teeth is his first book.

Review :
Alongside the sharp plotting, the poetry is exhilarating to read...The book's emotional register is similarly expansive, moving from the drily witty to the horrific and, often unexpectedly, the very moving. But beneath growls an unbroken note of menace...A love story so taut that you could floss with it Violent...Tender...Cool...Ambitious...it's about identity, community, love, death, and all the things we want our books to be about Forget any reservations you might have about werewolf stories or verse novels. This is great, engaging, wonderful stuff. Sondheim should make it his next musical The blending of urban heat and gothic savagery is blackly funny - and it works beautifully. The idea of lycanthropy has never been so hypnotically lyrical. And the romantic relationship between the human dog handler Anthony and secret shape shifter Sasha is drawn with real tenderness. There is biting comedy, too Daringly original... A wonderously strange story. His evocation of urban werefolf underworld is both inventive and probable A hot-tongued, howling wolf of a book, strange and tender, luscious and cool, frisky as a pup but with a mouthful of fangs. Once bitten, I was smitten by its beauty This free-verse novel about the lusts and longings and furies of a group of lycanthropes in Southern California may just turn out to be one of the literary highlights of the decade. It's odd, intriguing, absorbing, at times beautiful and always unique. At last a writer has appeared who is unafraid to do something new with an old form. I wolfed it down Toby Barlow is a true original. Sharp Teeth is darkly funny, witty, philosophical in its quirky, deceptive way, technically accomplished and strangely moving. It's eccentric and original, but it might just get the readership it deserves. It's a fine book Not for the faint-hearted Gripping