Sharp Teeth - Softcover

Barlow, Toby

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099512467 ISBN 13: 9780099512462

Publisher: Vintage, 2008

Synopsis

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 this title

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" (The Times)

"Violent...Tender...Cool...Ambitious...it's about identity, community, love, death, and all the things we want our books to be about" (Nick Hornby)

"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" (Michael Moorcock)

"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" (Daily Telegraph)

"Daringly original... A wonderously strange story. His evocation of urban werefolf underworld is both inventive and probable" (New Statesman)

Review:

`Barlow's stylish stanzas successfully revivify an old urban myth. Once bitten, it's hard to resist'

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0099512467
• ISBN 13: 9780099512462
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336