The third plot thread is that of Peabody, a Los Angeles detective who catches the case of the first missing dogcatcher. Following the leads, he finds a second murdered dogcatcher, and then a third who commits suicide. Prompted by suggestive telephone calls from a lisping man to investigate possible dog-fight dog trafficking, the detective surveils a houseful of blond surfers (also werewolves) and gets himself kidnapped, before witnessing the final bloody battle between the wolf packs.
I will confess to being extremely wary of this book, especially when I saw how long it was – I scarcely like to read haiku. But for all that Sharp Teeth is written in blank verse, it’s no poem like I have ever read - except perhaps Christopher Logue’s amazing work on Homer's Iliad. Toby Barlow has said that he believes the writing style fits the subject matter, that “writing about altered beasts seems to marry well to an altered style of language.” I wholeheartedly agree. The language is taut, visual and visceral. Every word has a purpose and the story is propelled forward with no extraneous mush; the athletic lyricism enables the reader to readily use their imagination to fill in any blanks not expressly parsed out in verse. I found myself turning the pages faster and faster to find out what happened next, and then at a chapter break, going back to reabsorb the striking imagery.
Sharp Teeth is a gritty, grisly, romantic, supernatural thriller, gripping in its content and gorgeous in its execution. Once you are a couple of pages in, you won’t even notice that you’re reading an epic poem. And by the book’s end, I guarantee that you won’t be looking the same way at your own dog.
Article comments
1 - Kevin Eagan
The fact that it's written as a 300 page blank verse poem is just amazing, even if I'm not a huge vampire novel fan.
2 - Friend Mouse
It's impressive. And it really doesn't read like a poem - completely accessible to prose-only folks.