MY FATHER THE WEREWOLF

In this subtly offbeat fantasy, a conscience-stricken screenwriter-turned-werewolf flees into hiding with his two teenaged children. Bitten by a werewolf near Pismo Beach, Ken pulls up stakes for his native Maine, settling in a small town, taking a job with a local telemarketer and figuring that his son Danny can row him out to a nearby offshore nature preserve whenever the full moon appears. That scheme works well enough for a while, even after a marijuana grower surreptitiously lands on the island one moonlit night and barely escapes with his life. Then a vicious December cold snap freezes the entire harbor, allowing the murderous monster access to the mainland, and Danny’s heroic efforts to drive his ravening dad back over the ice using smuggled fireworks leave the telemarketer’s office building a smoking ruin. Garfield lets the tale trail off shortly thereafter, rather than resolving anything—but readers will sympathize with Danny and his sister Miranda, as would-be normal teens forced into the role of protectors and caregivers for their feckless, periodically deadly parent. Readers who enjoyed the sardonic undercurrents in M.T. Anderson’s Thirsty (1997) are apt to catch them here, too. (Fiction. 11-13)