Something Shiny

Two words: werewolf gangs. First, it’s written in free verse which reads sorta funny since it’s not in standard paragraph form. It takes a couple minutes to get past that but it’s well worth the effort.

I’ve never read anything quite like it. It sucked me in quickly and is a fast read. I strongly recommend it.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Barlow’s gut-wrenching, sexy debut, a horror thriller in verse, follows three packs of feral dogs in East L.A. These creatures are in fact werewolves, men and women who can change into canine form at will (Dog or wolf? More like one than the other/ but neither exactly). Lark, the top dog in one of the packs who’s a lawyer in human form, has a master plan that may involve taking over the city from the regular humans. Anthony Silvo, a dogcatcher and normally a loner, finds himself falling in love with a beautiful and mysterious woman (Standing on four legs in her fur,/ she is her own brand of beast). A strange small man and his giant partner play tournament bridge and are deep into the drug trade. A detective, Peabody, investigates several puzzling dog-related murders. The irregular verse form with its narrative economies proves an excellent vehicle to support all these disparate threads and then tie them together in the bittersweet conclusion. 5-city author tour. (Jan.)
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From The New Yorker

In a cheeky nod to epic poetry, Barlow’s début novel is written entirely in free verse and concerns a metamorphosis, of humans into wolves, in Los Angeles. No slaves to the moon, these postmodern lycanthropes do a thousand situps at a time and choose when to “self-ignite.” (There are lapses: a grease-sensitive type inadvertently commits a massacre at Popeye’s.) The story involves a white-collar pack run by a Sun Tzu-style strategist that operates like a cross between a ruthless law firm and the Lakers; a plot to infiltrate animal shelters and high-end bridge tournaments; and a dog catcher who unknowingly falls in love with a werewolfess. Barlow deftly sketches the L.A. landscape—stucco, sun beating through smog, tract-home meth labs, fresh-cut lawns that “hiss with wealth,” freeways that devour hours of life—and metes out his tale in noirish koans: “Watch any man’s eyes / at the bounce of a ball. / His head tilts slightly sideways, just a hair, / as a primitive focus / comes to life.”
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