Staff Pick: David Doody

There’s a lot of talk these days about vampires. Vampire movies, vampire books, vampire sex symbols. Well, you can keep your vampires. I’ll take werewolves over those bloodsuckers any day, thank you very much. And while we’re at it, I’ll take my story about werewolves written in verse, please.

In Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth: A Novel (P.S.), which came out in paperback this spring, we are introduced to a number of werewolf gangs living in and around LA, doing what all gangs do: fighting, scheming, and vying for turf. And yes, the book is written completely in verse. It took me a while to give this book a chance, because, well,it’s a book about werewolves living in LA that's written in verse. But when I finally picked it up I spent the next 308 pages wishing I had picked it up much sooner. There’s no other way to put it: This book is pure entertainment. And the style, which at first (before I actually read it) struck me as (possibly) gimmicky, adds a pacing to the story that would be unmatched in prose.

Bio: David Doody is Guernica’s blog editor and a founding editor of InDigest Magazine.