The comparison seems hyperbolic, but then he throws a cat off a balcony, and we’re forced to reconsider. At one point, Sammie looks at Samson and is reminded of Carrie - from the movie Carrie, that is - just after she’s been doused with pig’s blood in front of her fellow prom-goers. He bites a friend so viciously he puts the kid in the hospital. With Teeth is a novel about alienation: from the world, from oneself, and especially from the little human you helped to create - perhaps the most distressing kind of alienation there is.Īs her son ages, Sammie grows more and more troubled by his conduct, not to mention his unsettling mien. But Sammie’s inability to understand her son hints at where Arnett is leading us. They are - many of them, at least - easily charmed. Is Samson’s susceptibility really so hard to grasp? Children are gullible, often quick to trust. Sammie is so horrified by her son’s apparent enthusiasm to leave her that, even years later, she’s still haunted by the memory of his “full-on toothy grin.” But what really unsettles Sammie is that her son seemed so willing to go - he even smiles (an aberrant behavior, for Samson) as he’s being abducted. This brush with disaster would be terrifying enough on its own. Sammie doesn’t buy it and calls the police, but the man gets away. The man claims he only wanted to show Samson his CB radio. She sprints in their direction, screaming wildly, and manages to snatch Samson just in time.

By the time she realizes what’s happening, it’s almost too late the man who took Samson’s hand and led him to the parking lot is already luring the boy into his truck. Kristen Arnett’s sophomore novel, With Teeth, opens with a harrowing scene: a four-year-old boy is nearly kidnapped from a playground when his mother, Sammie, briefly turns her back.

With teeth kristen arnett review