I Can't Stop Thinking About...Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

Yes, I cried over a book about a man turning into a shark.

Author

Erin Kayata
November 29, 2023

“What’s wrong?” my fiance, Matt, asks. We are driving through tree-lined hills as the sun sets over the pastoral Connecticut town where he grew up. In the dimming light, I sit in the passenger seat, sniffling.

“It’s my book,” I whimper. “It’s so sad.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about a man who turns into a shark.”

A pause. And then incredulously: 

“You’re crying over a book about a man…who turns into a shark?”

Had to pose my copy with these new wine glasses my friend, Abby, got us—I said I loved sharks!

How did we get here? Flashback to August. If there are two things I love, it’s love stories and sharks. So picking up “Shark Heart,” a novel advertised as a love story about a man who turns into a shark, was a no-brainer when I saw it on display in my local bookstore. The bonus was supporting the author, Emily Habeck, a fellow Cambridge resident and debut author.

When the novel opens, Wren and Lewis are only a few weeks into their marriage when Lewis is diagnosed with a carcharodon carcharias mutation meaning he will turn into a Great White Shark within a year. In the world of the book, these sorts of mutations are commonplace. There are doctors to treat Lewis and facilities he can visit. (This premise was fascinating—I almost wish there’d been more details about this world.)

Already, the physical changes are taking place in Lewis: His bones are turning to cartilage, he’s growing scales, and he has an uncanny appetite for raw fish. However, as the shark’s instincts kick in, Lewis will retain his memory and consciousness, save for brief moments when the need to kill and feed kick in, posing a danger to those around him including his wife.

We see Wren and Lewis’ relationship over their final year together. Wren, a pragmatist to Lewis’ dreamer, focuses on caring for her husband without complaint while secretly buying scuba equipment so she can live with him in the ocean once the transformation is complete. Lewis, an actor-turned-theater teacher, tries to finish that play he’s always dreamed of writing to leave his mark before his time as a human is complete.

The second thread of the novel explores Wren’s childhood where she served as a caretaker to her mother, an experience that left her obsessed with having control. She uses her experience caring for her mother to inform her experience caring for Lewis, correcting her past mistakes.

The premise is weird for sure, but that makes the emotional aspect of “Shark Heart” come like a sucker punch. A novel steeped magical realism like this is ripe for interpretation. For me, it ended up being about caretaking, losing someone you love to illness, grief, surviving loss, and the enduring power of love. 

“Shark Heart” is one of those novels that came into my life at the right time. I am in the thick of a season of grief right now after losing both my grandpas in a five-month span. Both Pe-pa and Grampy had been sick long before they passed and both of them had different forms of dementia that affected their personality. Reading “Shark Heart,” it was impossible not to draw comparisons between Lewis losing control (slapping someone with his tail) and my grandfathers having moments where they became unrecognizable thanks to their disease. 

I also felt Lewis’ pain. In the aftermath of losing two people so close together, I have been feeling the pinch of time. I keep feeling myself spiraling into a panic about whether I’ll have time to do all the things I want: start a family, get my master's, publish a book.

I don’t know if I can entirely recommend reading “Shark Heart” right after losing two people you love (and after getting engaged and preparing for marriage), but once I got through the emotional punch, it healed something in me. 

The scene I was weeping on that drive was where Lewis says goodbye to Wren. “You’ve been a wonderful, wonderful wife,” he told her. Sitting next to my fiance, a wedding venue visit behind us and a future ahead, those words broke me. I realized that at the end of my life, those are the words I want to hear from my partner. It’s what I wanted to hear from my grandfathers as I stood at their respective deathbeds (and in my heart, I have to believe it’s what they would’ve said). And it’s what I think the author wants us to realize is what really matters in life: the legacy of love we leave behind.

As I continue to wade through loss and its impacts, these are the words I’ll keep in mind and the ones with which I’ll leave you, patient readers. 

“Wren no longer sees life as a long, linear ladder with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, she considers how life is like a spiraling trail up a mountain. Each circling lap represents a learning cycle, the same lesson at a slightly higher elevation. Wren realizes she likes to rest as much as she likes to climb. She begins to enjoy the view.”

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