“Sharp Teeth” is about dogs. Big, bloodthirsty, shape-shifting dogs with the intelligence of humans and the feral instincts of wild animals. These new-age lycanthropes appear as respectable businessmen in their human forms, but are capable of transforming into vicious canines in a matter of seconds. They are waging a violent, underground gang war on the crime-filled streets of Los Angeles, a war made all the more lurid by flashes of corruption, betrayal and forbidden love. Yes, Toby Barlow has crafted a werewolf story for his debut novel, but you won’t find any silver bullets or hairy, bipedal monsters in its pages. Barlow has carved a whole new niche in the werewolf mythos. At the same time, he has delved into a rarely-used format for writing novels—the epic poem. By day, Barlow is executive creative director of JWT, the largest advertising agency in the United States and fourth largest in the world. He is also a contributing writer to the twice-yearly literary magazine n+1 and the online newspaper the Huffington Post. His first book, released this year by HarperCollins Publishers, came about largely by accident, the result of some leisurely writing on a strangely fascinating subject that developed into a full-blown storyline. “The idea of this gang of werewolves living up on Mulholland Drive in L.A. appealed to me,” Barlow says. The author will read excerpts from his new book and discuss the writing process at Portsmouth’s RiverRun Bookstore on Friday, June 27. He shot the breeze with The Wire during a recent phone call. 

How did you come upon this idea, a story about rivaling gangs of werewolves?
Well, I was reading an article in the Chicago Reader about a dogcatcher, and he described that wolf packs are made up of a bunch of male dogs surrounding a single female dog. It struck me as a pretty interesting social arrangement, and I thought—and I have no idea why this occurred to me, because I’m not really that into werewolves—but I thought, “Well, if she was a werewolf and they were werewolves and she fell in love with that dogcatcher, that would be kind of curious.”

Anyone reading this book will very quickly notice that it is unique in a number of ways, but perhaps the most immediately striking is that you wrote it in verse. Why did you choose to write it that way?
I’m a big fan of graphic novels and rock and roll lyrics and pulp fiction, and the way that the language can kind of grab you and hold you has always interested me. So when I started writing the story, I tried to write it in a fashion that seemed the most immediate and the most exciting. The free verse style brought more tension to the story and made it even more hardboiled.

Although this is a book about werewolves and there are some gruesome moments, it doesn’t have the feel of a horror story. It feels more like a suspenseful kind of drama with a love story. It’s more like a dark-humored Mafia book than something by Stephen King. Were you going for horror when you wrote this or were you trying for something else?
I think I was trying for the mix you describe. I think that’s pretty accurate. … I just tried to give it as much as I could to interest me. When you’re writing your first book and it’s an epic poem, your chances of selling it are pretty small, but your first duty is to thrill yourself. So I tried to make sure that the things that were happening were going to make me wonder what happened at the end, that the drama was going to carry me through to the end. So I think first and foremost it is a love story, and I think that it’s a love story that explores, metaphorically, what we consider human and what we consider to be more animalistic. And the Mafia sort of gangland parts of it I think were similar explorations into what sort of humans we are and what it means to be a pack animal.

Just to illustrate for readers who may not be familiar with the book, these werewolves are different from traditional werewolves, and there are shadowy outline illustrations of them throughout the book. Can you describe these dogs, as far as their appearance and size and so forth?
Yeah, they’re big dogs. They kind of look like a cross between a (German) shepherd and a wolf. They don’t walk on their hind legs and chase people around out of their minds. They act pretty much like dogs would, and they can change at will. I think that the idea of a full moon changing someone against their will is another kind of metaphor, and I wasn’t really interested in exploring that.

Like vampires or zombies, so much has been written about werewolves. In what ways does this book create new variations on the traditional werewolf mythos?
Well I think, for starters, having a werewolf be able to voluntarily change is a big twist. The nice thing about writing about mythological creatures is you get to play with them at will, and it gives you the freedom to describe what you really want to say, as opposed to being caught within convention.

This ancient race of lycanthropes encounters a lot of the same sorts of conflicts and emotions that regular humans do. There is a competitive power struggle, there is love and betrayal and vengeance and crime. Do you feel like the struggle of these creatures reflects that of humankind?
I think so. I think if it didn’t the book wouldn’t have any resonance. … I think that every era has its monsters. When you live in very decadent times, vampires are very cool, because they’re all about staying young and taking advantage of other people. When things get a little rougher, I think that werewolves become a bit more of the zeitgeist of the times, because it’s all about, as things grow feral, who is your pack and who can you count on?

Shifting to the writing process, as a contributor to n+1 and the Huffington Post, you’ve obviously done plenty of writing before, but writing a book is kind of a whole new ballgame. Was it challenging to complete this novel?
It wasn’t particularly challenging to complete. I was just thrown at what a task I’d set for myself. It’s sort of like I went for a little stroll down a path and discovered I was on the Appalachian Trail, and I just had to get to the end of it. But it was a terrific journey and I found it to be a pretty enthralling adventure.

How long did it take you to write this?
About three years, but I had to maintain the day job at the same time.

Speaking of the day job, as the creative director for an advertising agency, you must specialize to some degree in knowing what people want and what they find compelling. Did you bring that kind of expertise to the writing of this book, as far as creating something that people would pick up and not want to put down?
I hope so. In advertising, you generally want to engage people’s interest and hold it. ... Some people have considered the free verse form to be kind of gimmicky and have said, “Oh, it’s a typical ad guy gimmick to do something like this.” Which always strikes me as sort of funny, because as an advertising professional, if you came to me and said, “What should I do to create a bestseller that millions of people would want to read?” I probably wouldn’t recommend writing it in a style that generally frightens people, and poetry can freak people out pretty quickly. I mean, I think that’s the most surprising thing that I’ve learned, is how shocked people are when you break a line before it reaches the end of the page.

As you wrote this book, did you find out anything that surprised you about the literary world?
Yeah. One thing that I’ve found in the reception that the book got is that I think people are hungry for more playful experimentation in literature. I think that people are a lot less conventional than we give them credit for.

What have people’s reactions been like overall?
I’ve been overwhelmed by how surprisingly positive the book’s been received. I was very hopeful when I was writing it that people would get it in the spirit with which it was intended, and it seems like they’ve done just that.

Has there been any reader feedback or questions from fans that really surprised you or made you think, “Wow, that’s not what I intended”?
Not really. I can’t say that that’s the case. I was very surprised at what an enormous werewolf culture exists. I picked a subject slightly out of the blue and found myself amid a horde of thousands of werewolf enthusiasts.

And they’ve seemed satisfied, so far?
Yes, yes, very satisfied. Nobody’s gotten angry at me messing with the genre yet.

Do you have any dogs yourself?
Not right now. I have a couple of bitter cats.

Are you at work on any other books or planning any other novels?
I’m working on some things right now. I’m working on a father-daughter story.

What about a sequel to “Sharp Teeth”? Have you thought about that?
The characters are definitely kind of running around in my mind still. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what they’re up to, but we’ll see what the market demands.

Toby Barlow will be at RiverRun Bookstore, 20 Congress St., Portsmouth, 603-431-2100, on Friday, June 27 at 7 p.m.