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Book Review: Barlow, Sharp Teeth

By aardvarchaeology on August 8, 2007.

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Dear Reader,
Would you like to read about werewolf communes?
The beasties live quietly in southern California
Doing dirty work for the drugs trade
Sharing pack mentality, each with a queen bitch
Riding their vans to the desert's edge, changing
Into quadruped form and running long nights
Through the sagebrush, panting and exhilarated
Would you like to read about werewolf communes?

Could you chew and digest, Dear Reader,
Could you stomach three hundred pages
Of free verse narrative?
So finely done that you will often forget
That this is no ordinary novel
Page-turner poetry
Fit for loud performance
At camp fires and art festivals

The lycanthropes are among us
One may be snoozing on your sofa
Waiting for you to go to work
So he can turn a man and slip out
To take out a minor meth operation
Or raid a rival pack's compound

Toby Barlow is the author
Of the remarkable Sharp Teeth
Would you like to read about werewolf communes?
The beasties live quietly in southern California
I did
I read it
I savoured it
And let me tell you truly
Dear Reader
I'm pretty sure it has just whet my appetite

Barlow, Toby. 2007. Sharp Teeth. London: Random House. 313 pp. ISBN 978-0-434-01767-6.

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