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BOOK REVIEWS
(Love Remains) to unrestrained hedonism and excess (I, Lucifer) to Sadism (Weathercock), family (Death of an Ordinary Man), cultural unease (The Bloodstone Papers) and human endurance (A Day and a Night and a Day). But regardless of what each reader brings to the work, and of the differences evinced from book to book, one feature in essence stays the same: Glen Duncan’s writing always rings true. Like most marriages, the nature of this one has changed over the last 14 years. I cannot recapture the passion and intensity I felt for Hope back in Venice. (I would have been blind to its faults, had it any.) I have read and enjoyed Duncan’s latest novel, devoted spouse that I am, but in our thirties we f ind ourselves more resistant to being ignited, sublimated or seduced, and are prone instead to analyse, criticise and (for those that way inclined) deconstruct. The Last Werewolf is Glen Duncan’s f irst genuine experimentation with genre writing (although both I, Lucifer and Death of an Ordinary Man dabble superf icially). The story is the f irst person narrative of Jacob Marlowe, a world-weary werewolf exhausted by over a century and a half of existence and resigned to his impending end. Not unexpectedly, life takes its unpredictable turns and like a good treasure hunt the story quickly accumulates all the elements of good genre, albeit a mongrel mix of mystery, suspense, horror, tragedy and comedy—all in the context of the occult—with other supernatural creatures surfacing, like the currently en vogue vampires. Duncan is to be commended for weaving together a story which is not short of action sequences: at times gripping, at others laugh-out-loud hilarious, at all times evocative. Being a person who has no time for genre novels (either literally or f iguratively) I was delighted to f ind that Marlowe’s narrative delivers only the salient scenes, like in a sharply knit action movie. But this aspect of The Last Werewolf (which was mainly why the novel appealed to my better half when I thrust it upon him) is an almost schizophrenic distraction from the heart of Glen Duncan’s work; the underlying pulsation that moves him to write and which drew me in all those years ago; for interspersed throughout the action sequences is a character study. As Jacob Marlowe reflects on the world and his own duplicitous morality, Duncan’s true talent is showcased. He explores his favourite themes—love, sex, guilt and death—with a command of words that makes you forget at times that you’re reading f iction. At this point it might seem that The Last Werewolf has something for everybody—and indeed I suspect that anyone reading this novel will f ind “something” that appeals—but the overall effect for me was one that is resonant with the Russian saying, “It’s not meat and it’s not f ish.” I can’t help but feel that Duncan, by combining literature with genre in a punt on capturing a wider market, has produced something which is neither great genre nor great literature. My husband found that the genre elements tickled his thalamus, yet his attention waned during the ponderous parts. I enjoyed both but felt that the balance struck between plot and reflection