A Review of Andrew Joseph White’s The Spirit Bares Its Teeth
By C. C. Rayne
Cover by Evangeline Gallagher.
“Survival hurts sometimes,” Andrew Joseph White tells us in the preface to his recently published novel, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth. White, author of the bestselling Hell Followed With Us, goes on to compare his sophomore book to a medical procedure, and warns the reader about what types of horrors are contained in its chapters. Finally, he reminds us of a particularly important truth: you have a choice. You can always close the book and turn away. But for those who choose not to? “I hope your sutures heal clean.”
White’s content warnings interestingly contrast the setting of the novel: London, 1883, where many doctors treat patients without the faintest illusion of consent. Tackling systemic violences enacted upon autistic and transgender children, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth answers historic erasures of both groups with a compelling and thorny protagonist. Silas Bell, an autistic trans man, has coveted violet eyes, and the novel often speaks to real-world issues related to propagating and passing down structures that continue to harm. Throughout White’s grim, Gothic novel, Silas is determined to break away from crushing familial expectations, patriarchal violences, and a society who would kill him simply for existing.
At the novel’s start, Silas compares the most painful day of his life to a surgical procedure: “It’s burned into me like a cauterized wound,” he says, “an artery seared shut to keep me from bleeding out.” Here and elsewhere, the book pulls readers close, making it almost impossible to keep a comfortable distance from the pain Silas feels. In fact, the novel often uses physical images as a way to reckon with character interiority and Silas’ internal anguish. And yet, White’s use of language is lovely even when describing the most violent of images—and perhaps especially when crafting such brutal scenes. Scenes about rearranging organs read like verse, and cut straight to the heart with every turn of the page.
The novel, too, draws power from the unsaid. Some of the most impactful scenes are also the most obscured ones, and White’s tendency to pull back and leave room for implication and varied reader interpretation, only heightens the horror found throughout this novel. Experimental form contributes to the narrative’s impact as well. Readers encounter the Veil spirits, for example, on pages employing color inversion. Appearing as white text on inky black pages, the spirits’ words imitate the spirits themselves, existing as ghostlike presences and haunting the page in more ways than one.
At times, the pain in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth borders on unbearable, and the many agonies Silas is forced to endure are difficult to read. Yet, such difficulty is deserved, fully grounded in reality, and crucial to sit with as a reader. The novel is not without its moments of joy, though, and the more optimistic scenes—like those where Silas meets other characters like him—break up the more difficult moments. Similarly important to hold onto is Silas himself. Gutsy and angry, often afraid and filled with fear, yet protective of his surgeries and even more so of his patients, Silas wields kindness like a weapon. And he chooses bravery in doing so, in a world that gives him little kindness back.
It’s a common saying—that a story has teeth. And it’s a descriptor that puts a pretty clear picture in one’s head: a tale that’s powerful and painful, unafraid to act and unafraid to bite back. Title aside, that is the best way to describe The Spirit Bares Its Teeth. This book will horrify you and hurt you, but in the end, you’ll find it’s healed you too. If you have a rag to bite, read it as soon as possible. One couldn’t ask for a better surgeon.
C. C. Rayne is a writer and creator on the East Coast of the USA, deeply passionate about storytelling in all its forms. C. C's own work blends the magical with the mundane and the silly with the strange. Some of C. C.'s stories can be read in The Razor, The Deeps, Sublunary Review, and HAD. C. C.'s poetry can be found in such places as The Dread Machine, Soft Star Magazine, and Eye to the Telescope.