QUINT
Robert Lautner (robert-lautner.com)
The Borough Press (boroughpress.co.uk)
£16.99
Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop
Before he fished for shark off Massachussetts’ Amity Island, Quint was a boat for hire on Florida’s Merritt Island, taking daytrippers and too-rich college boys out sea-fishing; before that, he was in the US Navy, stationed on the USS Indianapolis, where he learned more about sharks in five gruelling days than most men could stomach in a lifetime. When his third wife dies, Quint drives cross-country to California to re-enlist in the Navy, only to find himself flagged as unfit for active duty. Heading for Amity Island, he encounters the local fishermen and charter boats, finding something of a frosty reception. When he learns of a dead whale off the island’s shore, Quint sets out under cover of darkness to tow it to the area he has claimed for himself, a task made nigh on impossible by the sharks that are feeding on it. As he battles these prehistoric creatures for the rotting meat that he believes will make him his fortune, he remembers the last time he encountered sharks in such numbers, and in such close proximity.
Y’all know me. Know how I earn a livin’.
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is one of those films that has become part of our global consciousness in the fifty years since its cinematic release: everyone has seen it, or has a vague idea of what it’s about. Who can’t quote Roy Scheider’s infamous line about a bigger boat, or hum the few bars that make up John Williams’ iconic cello theme? Central to the story is Robert Shaw’s fantastic depiction of gruff and rough fisherman, Quint, a man who makes a living fishing for sharks, despite his history with them, a history that we learn halfway through the film in a drunken night scene on his boat, the Orca, where the three main characters compare old wounds and the stories behind them.
Robert Lautner’s latest novel, as we might be able to deduce from the title, sets out to examine the background of this colourful character in more detail. The manuscript, we’re told by Amity’s mayor Larry Vaughn, who has taken ownership of Quint’s estate, was written around 1968, at his best guess, putting it around six or seven years before the events of Spielberg’s film. Starting in Florida, we find Quint chartering his lobster boat, Akron, to people keen to catch more than just fish. When his third wife dies, and nothing is left to tie him to Merritt, he decides to move on and eventually finds himself in Massachussetts, where he tries to set out his stall on the wealthy holiday island of Amity. Butting heads with the local charterers, led by Ben Gardner, Quint stakes his claim to an area ten miles off the island’s coast and plans to have a group out on the water as soon as he can, the next day if possible. News of a dead whale out on the water sees him taking Akron out under cover of darkness, where he means to rope up the whale and pull it to his own area, knowing that it will draw sharks and give his customers a good show. It’s not quite as easy as he’d hoped and, as he battles with the sharks who want to stop him stealing their dinner, he remembers back to the last days of his war, where he spent five long days in the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by sharks of all shapes and sizes, watching and waiting as they picked off his crewmates one by one.
Lautner’s greatest success here is in how well he captures the voice of his central character. He tells the story through the eyes of Quint, putting us in the man’s head and perfectly capturing the speech patterms and tone of voice made famous by Robert Shaw. From the outset, we feel like we’re in the presence of an old friend, a man who may be rough and ready, but who we’ve known since forever, many of us since our misspent childhoods (the film is about five months older than me, so when I say I grew up watching it, I mean it quite literally). Lautner, through Quint’s voice, immerses us in a world we know all-too-well, and puts us on the blood-slippery decks of the Akron as his protagonist does battle with literal monsters. Here he develops a theme that is touched upon briefly in Spielberg’s film – and to a greater degree in Peter Benchley’s original novel – showing us that while Quint has a healthy fear of the creatures he hunts, he ascribes no special powers or malign intelligence to them. In stark contrast to Chief Martin Brody and even scientist Matt Hooper, Quint’s mantra is that they are “just fish” and constantly berates himself to stop anthropomorphising them, or projecting human intelligence and emotions onto them. It is perhaps this, more than anything, that keeps Quint alive long enough to meet the giant great white that terrorises the Amity beaches during 1975’s July 4th weekend; during the course of trying to move the dead whale, he finds himself in the water with them on more than one occasion. His ability to keep his head and remain calm is what gets him back into the boat and relative safety.
Y’know, that was the time I was most frightened, waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a life jacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three hundred sixteen men come out, and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway… we delivered the bomb.
In a brave move, Lautner decides to “break up” the tension of Quint’s nighttime adventure by digging deeper into the biggest disaster in US Naval history at the time, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, the description of which is one of Robert Shaw’s finest moments onscreen. As the author himself notes in his afterword, he wanted to do justice to the story and to the real-life sailors who were involved. The result of the research and careful approach to telling Quint’s story in more detail, is a surface-eye view of one man – one of eleven hundred – who has been unceremoniously dumped in the ocean when a Japanese submarine torpedoed and sank the ship he was on. He tells of the oil slick that probably saved many of the men from burning up in the relentless sun, and of the clear water through which the men could see hundreds of sharks just below the surface, waiting for the most opportune moment to pick off the weakest of the pack. It is a harrowing and gut-wrenching story, a tale of horror that constantly catches us by surprise. And every time we think Quint has reached the end of his recollection, we find ourselves treading water with him again after a brief visit back to his present day, and awaiting the next horror, one more level of hell. No matter how detailed the story, we can never imagine being left alone in those waters for five days and nights, but Quint goes some way towards helping us understand. Lautner does the story justice, but he also rips the reader out of our comfort zone and drops us into the middle of the most terrible thing we’ll ever witness.
Lautner intersperses each chapter with brief excerpts from Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, partly because it’s the one book Quint remembers reading as a child; partly because he saw the Disney film at the theatre with his first wife; and partly because, contrary to popular belief, Pinocchio found himself in the belly of a shark (not a whale) during his adventures. As Quint himself might say, “Look it up.” It’s an interesting – and somewhat strange – juxtaposition with a man who would be the last person on earth you might associate with the little marionette, especially in his Walt Disney incarnation, but does make us wonder which of the puppet’s many attributes have helped to shape the man that Quint has become. What’s interesting is that, throughout the book, and even into Spielberg’s Jaws, the shark is always portrayed as a mindless animal looking for its next meal. Neither Lautner nor Spielberg ascribe any human traits to these creatures; the sense we get that they are somehow evil comes from within ourselves and any intentional violence that’s carried out is carried out by so-called humanity and not by the fish.
In short, Robert Lautner’s Quint is nothing less than a masterpiece. Coming in at under just 300 pages, it’s as intense a story as you’re ever likely to encounter, with not a single wasted word. We find ourselves in Quint’s head from the opening pages (Lautner even manages to capture the voice of Mayor Larry Vaughn in his short introductory piece). It’s a chance to finally understand what makes this iconic character tick and Lautner does a brilliant job of keeping us engaged and making us care for a man who so obviously dislikes the company of other people. Between 1968 and the flashbacks to 1945, we see the beginnings of the character we will eventually encounter on the big screen, and the key events that have made him the man he will ultimately become. Lautner has an obvious love for the character and for the source material and it shines through in his narrative, and his attention to detail. Like many people my age, I grew up watching Jaws for the giant shark. As I’ve grown older, repeated viewings have gradually taught me that the film isn’t about the shark at all; the shark is just a device to get Martin Brody, Matt Hooper and Quint out onto the water. The developing relationship between these three men is where the real story is. Reading Benchley’s original novel later in life has reinforced this evolving view and Robert Lautner’s Quint lets us into the secret world of perhaps the most interesting person in the Jawsuniverse. For almost 300 pages we find ourselves on the blood-slippery deck of the most famous lobster boat in cinema, watching a master at work. If you’ve ever enjoyed the Spielberg movie that gave birth to the summer blockbuster, then this is the story for you. Even if you haven’t seen Jaws, this is the perfect opportunity. Give the film a watch (take a pillow to hide behind if you’re that way inclined), then dive into this wonderful character study: the book stands well enough on its own, but is a much richer experience when read while the film is fresh in the reader’s mind. I’ll be waiting eagerly to see what Lautner comes up with next, and digging out his back catalogue while I wait. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…
