#BookReview ‘Such Sharp Teeth’ by Rachel Harrison

About the book…

A witty, moving tale of monsters and modern life from the award-winning author of Cackle and The Return.

For readers looking for a story of sisterhood, complicated families and love with a bit more bite… Rory Morris isn’t thrilled to be moving back to her hometown, even if it is temporary.

There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant, estranged from the baby’s father, and needs support, so Rory returns to the place she thought she’d put in her rearview. After a night out at a bar where she runs into an old almost-flame, she hits a large animal with her car.

And when she gets out to investigate, she’s attacked. Rory survives, miraculously, but life begins to look and feel different. She’s unnaturally strong, with an aversion to silver—and suddenly the moon has her in its thrall. She’s changing into someone else—something else, maybe even a monster.

But does that mean she’s putting those close to her in danger? Or is embracing the wildness inside of her the key to acceptance?

A darkly comedic, part horror, part love story and a brilliantly layered portrait of trauma, rage, and vulnerability.

Published in paperback and e-book on May 9 th, thanks so much to the wonderful people at Titan Books for my gifted review copy of ‘Such Sharp Teeth’ by Rachel Harrison, a writer who is firmly entrenched in my ‘must read’ coterie of those who manage to make you howl with laughter, angst and anguish(sometimes all in one page).

She has this way of illuminating and simultaneously skewering the female experience in a manner that is insightful, skilful, hilarious and howl inducing throughout this updating and reshaping of the werewolf mythos.

She skins the tropes-silver bullets, heightened sense of smell and the overwhelming hunger for meat-and makes it an allegory for belief in the impossible. An animal attack is one thing , but when evidence points to it being something more sinister, there is the two-fold issue of who did the turning, and what does it mean for the long term future? One thing is for certain, Google doesn’t have the answers…

Sisters Aurora-Rory-and Scarlett may have fairy tale names but their lives are far from such as Rory returns home to a place where coming back feels like failure, in order to support Scarlett through an unexpected pregnancy. Abandoned by her partner, Scarlett is overwhelmed by what is expected of her as a woman-to embrace this as the apex of womanhood-and Rory is the one person she feels she can be honest about the process with. However, after Rory has an unexpected re-connection with an old school friend, and maybe coming back won’t be the ball ache she feels it is, an animal attack derails everything.

It’s tricky taking something so entrenched in the public consciousness as the werewolf, the transformation, the externalisation of what is inside to become a literal beast. And seeing it through a feminist lens, it becomes an allegory for trauma and rage focussed on the way Rory is the ‘difficult one’, the one who speaks her mind, does what she wants whether it suits the world around her or not. She is expected to behave in a similar way to Scarlett, and when she doesn’t, the passive/aggressive way that her childhood experiences are dealt with out the onus firmly on her , not the responsible adults in her life. As the details slowly unfurl about what Rory has been through, and the lack of accountability from those who should have kept her safe, as the reader you feel your own beast beginning to growl deep down inside.

The transformation and attack scenes both reminded me of the television show ‘Being Human’ where a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf try to live a quiet, under the radar life whilst dealing with being the monsters that make everyone check under the bed before they get into it. George, the werewolf, was turned against his will and spends the first 2 series battling his otherness, the best which he sees as a separate identity from himself, one which he fights to retain his humanity. Highly recommend this show btw. Rory, also turned without choosing to, has to face thsi beast which actually appears very quickly on her return from hospital, and is something that she can see, smell and sense as it takes hold of her from the inside out.

The very physical and brutal nature of transformation is seen as I imagine it would be, reconstructing all the human physiology to become an an animal which is built for hunting and killing.

And as Rory battles to reconcile who and what she now is, as well as facing her past, she finds she is both braver and more honestly herself than she ever has been.  Scarlett , battling her own transformation by what is essentially a parasite, finds her physical self altering, transforming to something without her will, without her consent and without any guidance. Her fear is palpable-will she lose herself in the process of becoming a mother? Will Rory find an outlet in the spilling of blood to rectify her past?

Whilst Scarlett is the centre of so much unsolicited advice it terrifies her, Rory has nowhere to go other than Wikipedia pages and a local psychic shop to try and manage her new condition.

She has to think fast, on her feet, and I had this overwhelming sense of dread and worry for her from the time she was attacked-werewolf tales very rarely have a happy ever after.

This is what Rachel does so very well, she constructs modern women as they are, red in tooth and claw, unashamedly talking about their sexuality, their lives, their feelings . They have real friendships, honest conversations with their families and you damn well care about them making it to the end of the book. They do not subscribe to a notion of femininity or womanhood which is commonly accepted, they will stand up to be counted , flaws and all. They are rounded, well thought out women who you would genuinely like to get drunk with. All of this is to say that whilst these are very real women, the scenes of horror have a reality to them which is all too relatable-what do you do after eating raw meat under a full moon? Vomit, a lot. 

So far, modern witchery, haunted friendships and werewolves have come under Rachel Harrison’s gimlet eye. She has something new and fresh to say about a genre which is often heavily male dominated, where the women are conduits to the story, or adjuncts to the males,  rather characters in their own right. And I am 100% here for whatever she does next, I hope that you will be too.

About the author…

Rachel Harrison is the author of ‘The Return’, nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica and Electric Lit.

She lives in New York with her husband and their cat/overlord.

Links-https://www.rachel-harrison.com/