Amazon.ca
A Sharp Tooth in the Fur, Darryl Whetter's debut collection of short fiction, feels a bit like Russell Smith's
Young Men as rewritten by a young, word-drunk Bill Gaston. Most of its stories are indeed about young men. In "Sitting Up," a high school student takes to scratching words into his eczema-disfigured leg, while in "Profanity Issues, S.," a divorced tenure-aspirant spars over the ideology of profanity with his son's principal. Young men mountain-biking, young men stealing their ex-girlfriend's panties, young men seducing famous Indian-Canadian gay novelists: Whetter anatomizes the species in unflinching detail.
Whetter's collection is weakened somewhat by a handful of stories which feel as though they were included simply to create a "balanced" book. While the impulse to include stories in which the protagonist is not an angry young white guy is commendable, some of those attempts feel comparatively tepid. "Enormous Sky White," which alternates between the affairs of Grater, a young tree-planter in backwoods Ontario, and those of his girlfriend, Courtney, who is enjoying a summer term in Paris, is a case in point. Grater's half of the narrative is strikingly vibrant, while Courtney's Gauloises and flings seldom transcend cliché. All of the stories, however, are distinguished by Whetter's prose, which is inventive, precise, and vivid. It's the real star of this sly, smart, and gratifyingly original collection. --Jack Illingworth
Alistair MacLeod
"He frequently places his characters in a personal cul-de-sac, a very brave thing to do. His combination of theme and style is admirable." - Alistair MacLeod
