Sharp Teeth: A Novel

by Toby Barlow

the sublime form of a dog as she lies curled up like a comma in the cool forgiving summer shade there beneath the bed. Or the absolute satisfaction performed with quiet muscular grace of a dog roughly going at a good meal. Or the joyful dance in a dog’s eyes as she sits alert watching, waiting for you to do that something she wants you to do. “Do it,” she says. “Do it now.”

He lives, no surprise, alone.

walk through the open door and disappear into the pitch-black hole called forget this fucking day.

Really, thinks Anthony, I’m innocent of everything short of hate or indifference. And who isn’t guilty of that?

Hell, he thinks, for most people that’s called everyday life.

a prison is always a prison.

In the car, the rap song has every other word beeped out as if the small words themselves were a dangerous thing, and not the ideas of violence and waste and ridiculous luxury that the songs clutch in their rough embrace. Everyone is always looking in the wrong direction,

Monkeys’ idea of fun is throwing their shit at you. Monkeys always take the joke a step too far.”

You can’t own something unless you can swallow it. CHINESE PROVERB

there’s a point in your life when the youthful promise of every phone call devolves to a point where each phone ringing only inspires an “uh-oh” or “oh shit” or “what now.”

“You know, whoever hurt you dies every time they look in the mirror. That is how they pay.”

“And one day, Maria, you will die too, but there’s no reason for you to die every day.”

there’s only the ever constant law of evolution become what is or you will be what is not.

Go dog go.

You either trust or you distrust coincidence. It’s either small doses of magic pulling you to your appointed destiny or the devil trying to lead you down to the thorns.

Knowing someone isn’t coming back doesn’t mean you ever stop waiting.

You’ve got to want help to get it,

and thinks that Potter talking about ethics is like watching Satan sing about Jesus.

time takes what it wants.”