Opposites, as the saying goes, attract. At first glance, the two lovers at the centre of Emily Habeck’s magical-realist debut, Shark Heart, bear this out. Quiet Wren works in “high finance”; Lewis is a high-school drama teacher with dreams of writing and acting in his own experimental plays. Wren was “better at meal planning and financial matters. Lewis was better with obscure pop culture references and spontaneous art projects … Wren’s favourite elements were … repetition, silence and predictability … Lewis was a man of enormous feeling.”
In the early stages of their marriage, living in Texas, the couple find that their temperamental differences are sources of delight rather than conflict. Unexpected problems, however, soon surface. A few weeks after their “intimate and lovely but practical” wedding, Lewis notices changes to his body, physicality, mood and appetite. After tests and consultations, he is diagnosed with “Carcharodon carcharias mutation”. Lewis is becoming a shark. There is no cure.
There’s something absorbing and affecting about the novel’s concerns with the actualities of receiving and giving care. The central conceit of transformation seeks to capture the experiences of those facing life-changing or life-threatening conditions, and the estranging impacts these illnesses might have on sufferers and their loved ones alike. Lewis’s physical metamorphosis progresses rapidly and is described, through clear-eyed narration, in “agonising” detail: “The skin between his inner thighs conjoined … he was confined to a wheelchair … his bones were constantly fracturing. Daily living became an extended groan. And often a shout.” Wren undergoes a different, but still challenging, kind of adaptation – forced to take on the role of “mothering” her new husband as his developing shark instinct makes him increasingly bloodthirsty.
As the narrative moves forward and allows space for Wren to painfully contemplate her life without Lewis, and Lewis considers how he might bring meaning to his remaining days before he is released into the ocean, there are flashes of insight. Lewis’s motor skills diminish and eventually he can no longer write at all: “As Lewis became disenfranchised from the symbols he had to describe reality, he similarly felt unreal to himself.” Wren’s loneliness is often beautifully rendered; there’s a moment towards the end when, against a snowy backdrop, a murmuration of birds swoops away from her. It’s a painterly image of her alienation and loss, profound feelings that have roots deep in Wren’s past.
But there are problems here, perhaps to do with subjective taste. For many, the novel will seem gimmicky. Some “chapters” are a sentence long, others a paragraph. Habeck scatters snippets of Lewis’s autobiographical play throughout the narrative; surreal snatches of scenes, including a cameo from Patrick Stewart. The metatextuality, modish fragmentation and sense of erratically switching between modes created by these devices may aim to mirror the disorientation and loss of control the protagonists experience. However, these techniques are off-puttingly self-conscious and distracting. Similarly, there are aesthetic questions about the efficacy of the extended metaphor here: does it add to our understanding of trauma? Does it offer a new vision that would not have been accessible with “straight” realism? I’m not so sure it does.
And if readers are charmed by the novel’s quirkiness, its schmaltziness may be less palatable. When reflecting on his marriage, Lewis discovers that he was once “an aimless kite in search of a string to ground him to the world; but instead he’d found Wren, a great strong wing who supported his exploration of the sky”.
There’s a passage in which Wren is particularly despondent about her situation as survivor, and after a hallucination of her deceased mother lists the things that make life worthwhile: “Long drives; big skies; soft, warm blankets … treehouses … fairy rings … summer storms … moments of shared intuition … the internal music that plays when one decides to renew their partnership with life.” The sentimentality comes especially thick and fast as the novel heads towards its rather saccharine ending – a conclusion in which a sunbeam actually breaks through clouds. Despite its showy surface eccentricity, this is a relatively conventional romantic novel.
• Shark Heart is published by Jo Fletcher (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
