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McMahon-Coleman, Kimberley and Roslyn Weaver. Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture: A Thematic Analysis of Recent Depictions. Foreword by Gerry Turcotte. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2012. vi + 203 pp. Paper. ISBN 9780786468164. $40.
Through their somewhat lengthy title, Australian scholars Kimberly McMahon Coleman and Roslyn Weaver have quite adequately described their new study of werewolf and shapeshifter texts in literature, young adult literature, film, and television. This thematic survey covers a dizzying whirl of texts, often returning to several quickly-becoming-over-studied franchises. But it makes a compelling case for the significance of the werewolf today and also exposes the reader to some new, potentially interesting writers who are creatively updating a time worn, but not worn out, trope.
As Gerry Turcotte notes in his Foreword, "the shapeshifter is a perfect metaphor for our times" (1), and the wealth of texts that have appeared just since 1995 attests to its current popularity. In their brief preface and introduction, the authors reveal the purpose of their book and the scope of their corpus: to survey recent texts from the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia that deal not only with werewolves, but with shapeshifters more broadly defined. They also note that a large number of the works examined began as young adult fiction. Each of the volume's seven chapters then addresses a particular theme, some of which bleed into each other: "adolescence, gender, sexuality, race, disability and difference, addictive behaviors, and spirituality" (11). While the authors assert that they "have chosen to focus on a smaller number of texts" (3) in order to cover these more in depth, one of my disappointments with the study is the fact that, on the contrary, it covers so much ground that none of the themes can be addressed with any real theoretical depth. But at the same time, it omits some perhaps important works, such as Terry Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant (1999), Edo van Belkom's Wolf Pack young adult series (2004-2008), and Kelly Armstrong's Bitten (2001). The fact that each chapter is again sub-divided with up to eight subsections ranging from a single page to perhaps eight pages at the most further leaves the reader with a sense of fragmentation rather than coherence. That said, I think the work nonetheless...