Quint

'Uncannily brilliant… a book to be swallowed whole' EVIE WYLD ‘Excellent… a profound portrait of a life dislocated by war and violence’ THE TIMES Before there was Jaws, there was… QUINT This powerful and brilliant literary novel takes a character who, through Peter Benchley’s novel and particularly Steven Spielberg’s film, has become etched in our cultural imagination: Quint, the taciturn and grizzled sea captain who survived the shark-ridden sinking of the USS Indianapolis only to meet his end in the maw of a Great White at the end of JAWS. From the very first line, Quint’s voice is fresh, vivid and immediately transfixing. From his early seafaring days, via the life-altering events of 1945 to his arrival on Amity, this is a glorious literary picaresque with echoes of HemingwayFifteen years since I landed on Amity, an island full of rich folks adrift between the Hamptons and Montauk. Got a business and a boat, got me a truck with my name and a pretty shark scratched on the door. Carved it myself. Bad job. I got ghosts around me, lot of ghosts. Gotta put ‘em somewhere. Can’t drink ‘em all. Ain’t here for company, and I only got two stories for telling company anyways. Thinking if I get them stories down, on paper mind, then that’s just between me and the ink. You already know the end of his story: now find out where it all began. So much more than a fisherman, Quint is a survivor, a fighter, a man who has left three wives in his wake. From his time as a young sailor facing the horrors of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, to a deadly night-long showdown with a frenzy of sharks years later, before he finally settles on the island of Amity: this extraordinary act of literary ventriloquism is a vivid and utterly compelling reimagining of the life of a truly iconic character – from the acclaimed author of THE DRAUGHTSMAN and THE ROAD TO RECKONING. Quint, a man of the sea, has seen the best and worst of what the ocean has to offer. His experiences, both new and old, have shaped him into the grizzled captain we know today. HarperCollins 2024