Not So Killer Shark
- cepmurphywrites
- Aug 26
- 3 min read
By Colin Salt.
Of the theory that behind every great 1970s movie is a terrible 1970s book, none hold truer than Jaws. When Steven Spielberg adapted the book in an infamously difficult production, he reportedly remarked that when he read Peter Benchley's original novel, he was rooting for the shark. Whether or not he said it, it is certainly believable.
One review I read commented on something like "the undertone of economic anxiety" in the novel. Replace "undertone" with "sonic boom" and you have the actual book. Being a reader of 1970s pop epics like Arthur Hailey, I recognized the prose and structure that Benchley was clearly trying to ape. In fact, the entire book could have been written by Hailey with a title like Beach Resort and the only difference would be him having a more ‘normal’ season at the start to show the difference between routine and disaster. But I digress.
The book has characters who have had every drop of likeability and complexity stripped from them. The mayor is a weaselly slick operator who nonetheless sincerely wants to save his town's economy? Nope, instead he's doing everything because he's in league with the mafia (another thing that dates the book, as this was the height of mobster novel-mania in popular literature). Brody is less a troubled man seeking redemption and more of a consistently whiny loser. Hooper in the book is the largest non-shark villain, a sneering plutocrat who takes Brody's wife to bed and, unlike in the movie, gets what he "deserves". Ellen Brody falls into the category of "victim of the Evil Hooper, but into it enough that you shouldn't feel too sorry for her." Quint is not the Indianapolis survivor of the movie but rather a stock character. His archetype was old when Herman Melville was young.
The book's not-so-grand finale is more ‘realistic’ but vastly less interesting. The movie has a stranded boat in a final back to the wall showdown between man and fish. The book has them going out unsuccessfully, returning to port, Brody whining, then them going out unsuccessfully again, returning to port again, Brody whining again, and so on. The shark just dies as it closes in Brody and the book abruptly stops.
Now the alternate history part is: What if a book-accurate version was adapted?
The best-case scenario is something like the movie version of Airport, which tried too hard to keep so many of the book's subplots running. Which is to say it becomes a stilted and vastly more insta-dated film with a rushed ‘they fight the shark’ conclusion. The worst-case scenario is that it becomes a critical and commercial flop that might even be interesting due to how bad it was. In the middle is something like Friday the 13th or how Alien could easily have developed without the various sharp touches: A forgettable but watchable monster movie.
The butterflies from these alternate sharks are unknown, but at least we won't be getting Jaws the Revenge, where This Time It’s Personal, there are only two shark victims (one a nobody who dies over an hour after the first), and the final climax features a roaring exploding shark.
Or maybe we will, but as a straight to video film starring nobodies. You never know with this kind of thing…
 Colin Salt is an author who, among other works, wrote The Smithtown Unit and its sequel Box Press for Sea Lion, and runs the Fuldapocalypse Fiction review blog.