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.
