Have You Read This? Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

Tropes and horror often go together like Easter and Cadburry Eggs, and like the titular candy, people either find them either comfortably familiar or exhaustingly frustrating. For every Howling or Last Werewolf, there are many paranormal romances where being a werecreature is an excuse for love scenes featuring torn clothes and animalistic abandon. But there are some books that take the genre that’s been done (And done. And done. Ad nauseum) and produces something unique and engaging. The coming-of-age novel Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones is one of these.

The nameless main protagonist in Mongrels is not a werewolf, but he is part of a family of werewolves. They are constantly on the run, either leaving the scene of one of their kills or scraping by on the fringes of society. Through the eyes of its young protagonist, Mongrels not only introduces some intriguing ideas to the werewolf mythos that go against what has become anathema, it also showcases some very engaging characters. Other than the protagonist, there are the maternal and paternal figures of his aunt Libby and his uncle Darren, both offering lessons through their stories (which Jones uses to great effect) and through their colorful exploits/examples of what to do and what not to do.

The novel can be seen as a discussion of class, with these low-income werewolves’ adventures beneath the poverty line and the subsequent invisibility it provides, but this novel also has a great coming-of-age narrative where the protagonist discovers the prerequisite first love and loss as well as what it means to be an individual while maintaining ties to family. In this werewolf novel, the beasts are the heroes and the real antagonist is, along with Darren’s questionable decision-making skills, the society that shuns them and their lifestyle.