August 10, 2015
A pack of vagabond, homeless teenagers camp out in unoccupied suburban homes in Lynn’s dialogue-driven tale of outcasts and rejects. The restless group, led by a control freak named Malcolm, pillage what they can and live off the land—which in this case happens to be a wasteland of supermarkets, malls, and convenience stores. If one of the kids stays with the group long enough, they “change” and become a unique type of werewolf. This is not your horror movie sort of werewolf, but simply a creature with heightened senses who preys on the fringes of normal society. Yet one of the teens’ rules is that an actual physical change is required—it’s not just a state of mind. When young Bobert is kicked out of the group for defying Malcolm, he returns home and finds his younger brother, Tim, has changed for the worse. Together they set out on a quest to rejoin the werewolves. As they evade the police and try to rebuild their lives in the wilderness, their twisted path reaches a crossroads at a house occupied by an unsuspecting old woman. At heart, Lynn’s compelling debut novel is a parable about loneliness, violence, and modern malaise. It is one of the first post-recession, post–housing crisis American novels of truly alienated youth and suburban fear.
August 1, 2015
A group of roving suburban lycanthropes struggles to balance order with ferality in this chatty allegory. The debut novel by Lynn (Theatre and Dance/Univ. of Texas at Austin) is told almost exclusively in dialogue, with the exception of a handful of first-person interludes. This can make it difficult to discern who's talking to whom in the early pages, but the skeletal plot and declarative chapter titles ("Angel and Susan Make a Plan") make things straightforward enough: a band of werewolves has been squatting in empty suburban homes, hunkering down long enough to gather food and supplies before police and neighbors get suspicious. Malcolm, the group's ostensible alpha dog, prescribes careful consideration of the group's every move, but his authority is challenged by Angel, who has more violent tendencies. Clawing, biting, and worse inevitably ensue, but by werewolf-tale standards, this one is deliberately low on snap and bite and bloodshed. Indeed, though some members of the pack are locked away when they go through a three-day "change," it's an open question how much they're actually changing. The novel is more a study in power dynamics and how, ironically, even wild packs hunger for organization. The dialogue-heavy structure has limits, though. The struggle between Malcom and Angel is relatively inert, and the late chapters' focus on an exiled member, Bobert, trying to return to the fold feels somewhat digressive. Lynn is strongest when he illuminates the urge to break free from convention in the face of threats. "We're waking up that part of our brains...instead of waiting for the plague or whatever happens next in history," one member says. The book is not quite Orwell, but it's an offbeat glimpse into how resistance to conformity breeds its own kind of conformity. As one of the "rules" puts it, "Eventually everyone will be a werewolf." A curious subcultural tale that somewhat successfully rewrites familiar supernatural themes.
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October 1, 2015
The focus of this dystopian tale of urban drifters is a group of homeless young adults who squat in empty or abandoned houses. They're led by Malcolm, whose vision of a society of outsiders, known as "werewolves," is the glue that holds this ragtag family together. The other central character is Rob, nicknamed "Bobert," who finds his way to the group through Susan, another member, who discovers him huddling beside a dumpster. The group seems to be succeeding until Malcolm's growing desire for revenge against a Peugeot driver who injures him and kills his dog, along with the rare tactical misstep of moving into a seemingly empty house in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, leads to a level of violence that will shatter their bond. VERDICT Lynn's choice to tell his story almost entirely though snippets of dialog and to shift the focus continually from character to character gives the novel a playlike feel. But it also keeps readers from knowing or caring about any of the characters until the last quarter of the book, which centers on the banished Rob, and his brother Tim attempting to rejoin the "werewolves." A gritty, provocative but not altogether successful first novel.--Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA
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