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Reviewed by:
  • Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz
  • Deborah Stevenson, Editor
Moskowitz, Hannah. Teeth. Simon Pulse, 2013. [288p]. Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-6532-9 $17.99 Paper ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-4946-6 $9.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4424-4947-3 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 9–12.

A boy lies in bed at night on an isolated rocky island, listening as the waves crash loudly against the shore—but not loudly enough to drown out the screaming that rings out across the sea every night. A mysterious girl lives in a secluded mansion that she almost never leaves, fascinating the boy. A monstrous secret from the past is enfleshed as a being that threatens the heart of the island. Those are some old-school gothic elements, but Moskowitz brings them into arresting modernity in this breathtaking, heartbreaking, wholly original tale.

Sixteen-year-old Rudy, our narrator, isn’t a particularly gothic kid; he was mostly a thoughtless young guy with a fondness for mild bullying and getting laid until his five-year-old brother, Dylan, became horribly, incurably ill with cystic fibrosis. Now he and his family have come to this distant place in hope that the island’s silver Enki fish, reported to be curative, can heal Dylan, and it actually seems to be working. Diana, the daughter of the island matriarch, is the only other teenager on the island, and Rudy strikes up a flirtation with her out of lust, out of boredom, and out of interest in her vast library.

But the relationship that really changes Rudy’s life is another one. The swiftly swimming guy who Rudy occasionally spots in the distance turns out to be someone—something very different up close: “webbed fingers, the scrawny torso patched with silver scales, and a twisted fish tail starting where his hips should be, curling into a dirty fin. A fish. A boy. The ugliest thing I have ever seen.” Despite being a fish-human hybrid, profane, prankish Teeth (as he calls himself for his pointy fish teeth) proves to be excellent company for a lonely human guy, and he and Rudy gradually become friends. Teeth, however, has a mission: he wants to free the Enki fish, and his attempts at sabotage make him the target of the fishermen, who beat him nightly with cruel and lethal intent. A horrified Rudi initially throws his lot in with his friend, but then the fish scarcity sends his beloved little brother back into a literally suffocating downspiral. The friends realize they’re at an impasse: the fishing that Teeth aims to prevent is the only thing keeping Rudy’s brother alive.

That’s not even plumbing the full depths of this lacerating story about love and caretaking, guilt and complicity, liberation and isolation. Moskowitz writes Rudy’s narration with authentically conversational roughness and subtle craft, and characters are interestingly faceted. Rudy is deeply devoted to his family and especially to Dylan, but he also fears that the miracle of the fish means he’ll be exiled to this island for the rest of his life. Diana, the girl who knows about life only from books, is coolly intriguing. Teeth himself is fascinatingly depicted: no [End Page 281] lithe silver mermaid, he’s a doomed chimera; the result of bizarre human/fish sexual congress, he struggles on land or at sea. Under his brash insouciance, he’s innocent and longing and desperately in need, and his friendship for Rudy evolves into truly moving involvement with Dylan’s fate as well. But the ethical quandary the two friends face is utterly implacable: since Teeth is half-Enki fish, they’re weighing the value of Teeth’s brothers against Rudy’s.

While Moskowitz clearly knows her literary context (even Diana’s library adds resonance), she’s never enslaved by it. This is an ungothic gothic, a harshly unmagical work of magical realism, with more in common with Chris Lynch than “The Little Mermaid,” and no matter what readers are expecting, they’re certain to find surprises. They’ll also find poignant exploration of some of life’s hardest questions, like what you sacrifice for those...

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