Will I love The Raw Shark Texts?

At the beginning of my The Raw Shark Texts hardback, a Mark Haddon quote on a post-it note calls it "The bastard love-child of The Matrix, Jaws, and The Da Vinci Code," which is a pretty accurate summary of what you’re getting into with this one.

It’s a substantial novel, and you have to pay attention, but it’s well worth the investment. Epic, inventive, oceanic in scope and wryly funny, with the best cat in a book since The Last House on Needless Street. 

While more literary than horror, the concept of a man with no memories being pursued by a shark made of words has plenty of creepiness to it! Here, the author uses different typographical sizes and structures to create pictures, and these tie into the themes of the book. It’s a straightforward read with a unique edge that helps make language more visual, and that makes it thoroughly compelling.

The Raw Shark Texts is one of the most surreal, creative novels I’ve ever read. In it, there’s a conceptual world intersecting our own, a world composed of our words, thoughts, and ideas. A creature of that world–a shark-like fish called the Ludovician–is hunting the main character and eating his memories. And that is just the start of the weirdness. If you read this book, make sure to pick up the print copy, where you get to see the Ludovician swimming in the book’s pages.