The Beast in Aisle 34 - by Darrin Doyle (Paperback)

About the Book

"Sandy Kurtz has problems. He's got a baby on the way, his wife doesn't love him, and he's struggling to find passion or purpose at his big-box retail job. And, once a month, he turns into a werewolf. Join us on the trip. Feel the power of the full moon as it turns you into a carnivore capable of ruling the wilds of rural Michigan. Taste the rich blood of a pulsing animal heart; feel it cascade down your face as you transform into what you always wanted to be. Enter...the wolf"--

Book Synopsis

Sandy Kurtz has problems. He's got a baby on the way, his wife doesn't love him, and he's struggling to find passion or purpose at his big-box retail job. And, once a month, he turns into a werewolf.

In Darrin Doyle's deft hands, Sandy's story is a tall tale for our times, an absurd and darkly comedic take on toxic masculinity, small-town America, and the terror of not knowing who you are-or who you're capable of becoming.

Join us on the trip. Feel the power of the full moon as it turns you into a carnivore capable of ruling the wilds of rural Michigan. Taste the rich blood of a pulsing animal heart; feel it cascade down your face as you transform into what you always wanted to be. Enter...the wolf.

Review Quotes

"The Beast in Aisle 34 is a marvel - furiously paced, insanely imaginative, and wildly funny. In this remarkable book, Darrin Doyle breathes new life into the wolfman story - not to mention the small-town Midwest tale - by weaving these tropes into a two-headed monster that asks essential questions about the world mankind has created, while simultaneously lampooning it. Like my very favorite writers, Darrin Doyle sees the beauty in the grotesque, the humor in the bleak, and the magic in the everyday. I cannot recommend his latest novel enough." - Jen Fawkes, author of Tales the Devil Told Me

"No joke, for years I've put this policy on my syllabus: If there is a werewolf in your story, it ought to be a complicated werewolf. And now with great joy I have found, courtesy of Darrin Doyle, the epitome of the Complicated Werewolf. Meet Sandy Kurtz-ambivalent husband, expectant father, discontented home improvement store employee, and full-moon terror. Doyle moves the story forward with professional pace and energy, all the while developing his wolfman with wit, subtlety, depth, and gore. You'll root for Sandy, despite what he does to deer." - Chris Bachelder, author of Bear v. Shark and The Throwback Special, finalist for the National Book Award

"...a poignant character study that alternates between humor and more intense action sequences. The novel evokes the sardonic wit of Mark Haddon mixed with Christopher Moore. Fans of the novel Mongrels (2016), by Stephen Graham Jones, and of Grady Hendrix's work will enjoy Doyle's latest offering." -- Booklist

"Darrin Doyle's The Beast in Aisle 34 is a rip-roaring read that'll keep you up at night, promising yourself just one more chapter. It also happens to be a profound meditation on the struggle to make it through the days and months of our mundane lives. As Doyle shows, lurking beneath that struggle is something much, much darker. There's a monster in all of us--the question is how (or if) we ever manage to control it." -- Giano Cromley, author of What We Build Upon the Ruins and The Last Good Halloween

"The Beast in Aisle 34...will appeal to fans of John Landis's American Werewolf in London and Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, and anyone hungry for an original, witty character study wrapped in the bloodsoaked pages of a horror novel." - Rue Morgue

"Darrin Doyle is a dark and ingenious metaphor-maker par excellence, and The Beast in Aisle 34-besides being a wonderful tall tale of a man bitten by a werewolf who succumbs to the bliss of his full-moon nocturnal transformations-reads like an antic metaphor of an addict whose life revolves around getting a fix. It's a haunted and haunting fable of our times." - Joseph G. Peterson, author of The Rumphulus

"The Beast in Aisle 34 is wonderfully weird, hilarious and full of a manic energy that clutched me in its claws and wouldn't let go. You'll want to binge-read this one, even while you don't want it to end!" - Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will, a New York Times Notable Book

About the Author

Darrin Doyle has lived in Saginaw, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Cincinnati, Louisville, Osaka (Japan), and Manhattan (Kansas). He has worked as a paperboy, mover, janitor, telemarketer, pizza delivery driver, door-to-door salesman, copy consultant, porn store clerk, freelance writer, and technical writer, among other jobs. After graduating from Western Michigan University with an MFA in fiction, he taught English in Japan for a year. He then realized he wanted to pursue fiction writing and permanently stop doing jobs he didn't love, so he earned his PhD from the University of Cincinnati.

He is the author of the novels Revenge of the Teacher's Pet: A Love Story (LSU Press) and The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo (St. Martin's), and the short story collections The Dark Will End the Dark and Scoundrels Among Us (Tortoise Books).and The Big Baby Crime Spree (Wolfson Press). Currently he teaches at Central Michigan University and lives in Mount Pleasant, Michigan with his wife and two sons. His website is www.darrindoyle.com.