Paperback, 192 pages
? inches
9780864923530
Buy now from Goose Lane Editions
View Excerpt [PDF]
Hear an Excerpt [SoundCloud]
High Resolution Cover Image [JPG]
The thirteen provocative stories in A Sharp Tooth in the Fur, Darryl Whetter’s first collection, offer lots of sex, a bit of violence, and a wickedly clever exploration of human nature.
Backed into emotional corners, Darryl Whetter’s men are creatures of feckless energy and intermittent idealism. Their fragile relationships break up easily, and men who don’t retreat into pot-fuelled lethargy revert to ambitious self-destruction. Excellent as he is at capturing his characters’ essence, Darryl Whetter is mature enough to view the men in particular, but also the women, with considerable irony. Whetter’s “heroes” are often men in their twenties or thirties, men with little self-knowledge but boundless self-centredness and sexual appetite.
“What most arrests about this debut is the deliberate subversion of expectations. He can pin down his insights with wonderful precision, moving from dispassionate perception to an abrupt and moving burst of emotional truth.” – Globe and Mail
The event that propels several stories is the break-up of a marriage, a love affair, or a liaison of convenience. In “A Sharp Tooth in the Fur,” an ex-couple acts out a highly original sexual fantasy that’s as hilarious as it is shocking. From the classroom to the laundromat, from Paris to the mosquito-infested Ontario bush, Whetter dissects a portion of human experience that has never been so deftly explored, revealing the psyche of the 20-something male.