Author Toby Barlow is creating quite a stir with his first novel, a werewolf story called Sharp Teeth. Written as a way to pass the time during a year-long stay in a Chicago hotel, Sharp Teeth combines free verse imagery with humour, sorrow and violence in what critics are calling a “gut-wrenching, sexy debut, a horror thriller in verse.”
Here’s an excerpt to give you an idea of what people are talking about:
Some of us have problems.
They still talk about Bone and what the grease does to him.
He can’t go into fried chicken places
the smell, the scent, turns his blood right away.
They say he took out a Popeye’s once.
It made the news, unsolved.
It took him an hour.
He walked in, just to pick up a bucket.
The smell hit him, the change happened,
and the whole place had to go.
Chicken, customers, biscuits, and gravy.
Needless to say, Sharp Teeth is now at the top of my “books to buy” list. Check out the official web site at sharpteeththebook.com.