Jaws
1973
- blue sharks
- dolphins
- shark cage diving
- bang sticks
- harpoons
- mafia
- selectmen
- connivance
- great white sharks
- thrillers
The story
Jaws is a 1974 novel by American writer Peter Benchley. It tells the story of a great white shark that preys upon a small resort town and the voyage of three men trying to kill it. The novel grew out of Benchley's interest in shark attacks after he learned about the exploits of Montauk, New York shark fisherman Frank Mundus in 1964. Doubleday commissioned him to write the novel in 1971, a period when Benchley worked as a freelance journalist. ---------- Also contained in: - [Best Sellers from Reader's Digest Condensed Books](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15134116W) - [Reader's Digest Condensed Books. Volume 2 - 1974](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15150299W) - [Three Complete Novels](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3454878W/)
What it’s like
Sun-bleached summer dread, with the bright surface of a resort town hiding something cold underneath. The prose is brisk and journalistic, full of practical detail: the reek of fish guts on a dock, the slap of wet nets, the heat coming off a tarred harbor, then the deep green-black of open water where the light gives out. Chapters cut between town meetings, shouting on the beach, and long quiet stretches on a small boat rolling under a flat sky, so the tension swells and recedes in waves. Its people are a harried police chief who is out of his depth, a salty fisherman with a hard-earned grudge, and a scientist who has to be coaxed into belief, and their arcs move from denial and bickering toward uneasy trust in one another. The violence is real and unflinching: attacks are sudden and bloody, with graphic gore and some vivid descriptions of injury and death, plus strong profanity, adult drinking, and an undercurrent of small-town corruption. It suits a long beach holiday or a late-night read with the lights on, and fits readers who like pulpy suspense, maritime grit, and a steady build toward a showdown at sea.
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