Shark Heart: A Love Story

“Lewis often told his students that living itself could be an art form. So it made sense that his life, as their teacher, would be a demonstration of this principle. If this was Act One, Lewis still had control. He could still direct his own story. What happened after intermission would be in nature and God’s hands, if there was a god. And if there wasn’t, Lewis would blame life, the chaos, the living drama.”

Lewis’s conviction in life as metatheater is established early in the book. This ethos informs both the shape of the plot, determining Lewis’s actions, and also the form of the text itself, which is interspersed with theatrical passages and conforms to a three-act structure.

“Beyond the spheres of light cast by streetlamps, Wren saw raccoons, opossums, skunks, and stray cats. Once, she saw a fox prowling across front lawns. Twice, a coyote bolted the moment it saw her. After these sightings, Wren caught her mind wandering, wondering what it would be like to be an animal with such uncomplicated, reasonable fears.”

The connection that Wren feels to the natural world, in particular the animal world, is a thread throughout the entire book. At times, other characters compare her to an animal. Here, she draws the same connection herself. Though readers are not aware at this point of Wren’s backstory, the reasons for this line of thinking become clear when it emerges that she grew up with a mutating mother.

“Why do I still want to do this? Why do I need acting? Lewis asked himself, often. He could recite his old answers, but they no longer held the same potency. He wanted to be an actor because he loved to transform.”

Lewis’s desire to transform as an actor is answered by the cosmic irony of his mutation, which permanently transforms him against his will. The use of this form of irony has a long history in the theatrical tradition, making this another example of how Shark Heart draws upon theatrical conventions in its own form.

“She decided to swim so much that she, like Lewis, like the Tiny Pregnant Woman, would transform into something equipped for the water. With her own mind and muscle, she, too, could engage the ever illusory margin between human and animal.”

Wren imagines Lewis’s mutation as a form of superpower—a transformation of the body that will grant him extraordinary abilities in the water. Lewis himself will later echo this sentiment as he tries to come to terms with his oncoming life as a shark. This reframing, as well as Wren’s efforts to draw closer to Lewis through swimming, highlights the theme of Navigating Terminal Illness and Anticipatory Grief.

“When she was a girl, the pool distilled her identity to swimmer. Now that she was a woman, would pregnancy reduce her entire identity to mother?”

Unbeknownst to Wren, Tiny Pregnant Woman has a fraught relationship with her own abilities as a swimmer and with her own pregnancy. Both of these things are things that Wren envies, but for Tiny Pregnant Woman, they feel like confining aspects of her identity. This irony highlights a missed opportunity to connect, developing the theme of Transient but Formative Female Relationships.

“All the hours he spent theorizing about magic seemed so naive now. The main ingredient in transformation was not magic. It was pain.”

Lewis comments on the magical aspect of his fabulist story, one of many instances of a fourth-wall break in Shark Heart. Here, he denies that magic, reducing the in-world phenomenon of mutations to the reality of pain.

“With no large fanfare, this interaction concluded Wren and the Tiny Pregnant Woman’s unusual friendship. They each served a purpose in the other’s life, and separately, each had enough to grieve without grieving each other as well. The Tiny Pregnant Woman had already surrendered to a fatalistic future, but Wren still had hope.”

Wren’s friendship with Tiny Pregnant Woman is the first significant female relationship to formally end over the course of the book. The narrator’s direct address to readers about it (a fourth-wall break), introduces the idea that such endings are not necessarily a problem if the relationship has run its natural course.

“Beyond pity, grief, and secret fascination, almost everyone at the party discovered the same private truth: Lewis and Wren’s situation made them feel better about themselves.”

The third-person omniscient narrator can reveal to readers the thought processes of secondary characters whose thoughts and feelings are unknown to Wren and Lewis. Here, the narrator’s insight unveils feelings that the characters themselves would never admit out loud. Their voyeuristic curiosity about Lewis’s illness, and the self-satisfaction it brings them, limits their ability to fully support Lewis during the party. The behavior of acquaintances therefore becomes yet another complication for Wren and Lewis as they navigate terminal illness.

“His wheelchair, shunned in the hallway, banged up but still usable. Lewis himself, draped across the table, unconscious with his now customary open-eyed look. A sleeping Venus.”

The comparison of Lewis to “a sleeping Venus” is an allusion to the Renaissance masterpiece of the same name, commonly attributed to Giorgione. This painting, commonly recognized as the first full-scale reclining nude in the history of Western painting, inspired an entire genre of similar Venus portraits and has erotic connotations. Habeck invokes this suggestive artwork within the context of a violent scene, indicating that Wren is able to view Lewis romantically even in his new dangerous form. The comparison also subverts the male gaze of much classic artwork by making a woman the voyeur and a man the object of her desire, which is in keeping with the novel’s feminist sensibilities.

“At the end, he would recite one of his favorite Eugene O’Neill lines: It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a seagull or a fish. Instead, he was dizzy, losing his sense of place. Light. Heat. Concrete. Grass. Car. House. Sky. Who were these sad people staring at him, asking him questions using words he did not understand? He looked to Wren to remember. He always remembered Wren.”

The Eugene O’Neill quote referenced here comes from Long Day’s Journey Into Night, an autobiographical play that was published in 1956, three years after O’Neill’s death. Lewis’s plan to recite it when parting with his parents for the final time speaks to his ethic of life as metatheater. This ethic, however, falls apart as Lewis’s physical state makes his presence of mind impossible.

“You make everything better than when you found it,

especially me.

Thank you for a wonderful marriage.

I would change nothing, not for anything.

And you deserve much more than the idea of me.

It would stifle your possibility.

When Someone Else comes your way,

you have my blessing, my absolute blessing,

to begin again.

You will be a wonderful mother

and wife.”

As they part ways for the final time at the beach in California, Lewis reprises the verse from the very first scene of the book. This time, he switches the line “even me” to “especially me,” becoming more emphatic in his praise of her. His final words about motherhood will become most significant for Wren after they are separated because of her surprise pregnancy with Joy.

“Angela lay faceup on the hot green concrete, pretending her body was a melting Popsicle. As she started to sweat, she imagined all the ugly parts of herself dripping away, leaving only her dream self, whom she deeply, truly, always wanted to be.”

Angela’s metaphor of her body as a popsicle, her sweat mimicking the treat’s melting, half-frozen liquid on a summer day, is in line with the book’s broader treatment of bodies as constantly changing. In addition, the dissolving structure of the popsicle mirrors her understanding of her own body as unreliable, a sentiment she will voice on page 309. The gap between her ideal self and her unstable bodily reality is a conflict that determines the course of Angela’s life, though she may not realize it as she constructs this metaphor while lying on the tennis court as a teenager.

“Angela wasn’t old enough to get a driver’s license, buy cigarettes, or vote, but she was the perfect age to worship the first guy who said she was important.”

Habeck illustrates the transitional nature of adolescence by contrasting Angela’s legal limitations as a minor with the adult way in which Marcos treats her. This contrast highlights the predatory nature of Marcos’s attention and foreshadows the abuse that will characterize their relationship. In addition, the transition from childhood to adulthood mirrors the tumultuous transition her body eventually undergoes from human to lizard.

“Angela is a sweet girl, and I will do my best to help her, Theresa thought as she gave Angela second helpings of beans, rice, and cornbread. But there are bruises on her arms.”

The visibility of Angela’s abuse to Julia and Theresa stands in contrast to Angela’s own understanding of her situation, which normalizes Marcos’s violent behavior. Theresa’s observation of the bruises shows rather than tells readers that Angela is experiencing domestic violence.

“The morning Marcos left for New Mexico, his truck packed with art supplies, tools, fishing poles, and books about recondite spiritualities, he held his daughter for the last time, as if she were a strange, wild animal.”

The simile likening Wren to a “wild animal” echoes sentiments expressed throughout the book (sometimes by Wren herself) about her affinity with wildlife. Here, it demonstrates the emotional distance between father and daughter, as well as Marcos’s general discontentment with fatherhood.

“The change seemed invisible at first. So they separately convinced themselves it was not happening. But the wedge of silence between them grew, and their uncomplicated friendship began to crack. Julia longed for Angela, and then she hated her.”

The end of Angela’s friendship with Julia epitomizes the transience of formative female relationships. The metaphorical “wedge” that drives them apart is actually the invisible force of social change, with both women independently growing as people and then failing to communicate with one another about those changes. The evolution of longing to hatred, seemingly antithetical emotions, points to the high emotional stakes of friendship.

“Placement is where we release these animals when they complete their mutations. For these guys, it’s Indonesia. Which reminds me, we offer complimentary placement transport if you begin a payment plan within six months of diagnosis. All the prices are listed in your pamphlet.”

Habeck uses black humor to criticize the healthcare industry’s for-profit nature as a medical worker tries to make money off of Wren’s need to ship Angela to Indonesia once she becomes a Komodo dragon. This is an example of how the magical components of Shark Heart serve as a metaphor for the real-world experience of terminal illness.

“‘I’m not dying.

I’m changing.

Dying is similar to changing,

but dying and changing are also very different.’

‘Different how?’

‘I don’t know.’ Angela sighed.”

In this assurance to Wren, Angela is simultaneously sure and unsure, revealing an internal conflict about the nature of her disease. This conflict is never fully resolved, and it is up to readers to interpret how the mutations relate to death and dying.

“Lewis dreamed he was the stem of a pear: The pear was plopped in the water

by a mystery hand from above,

and the leaves, winglike, were his

arms, reaching upward.

If only I could fly, not swim, Lewis

thought in the dream.

But the sweet weight of the pear

anchored him. And the more he struggled, the

more he panicked, and the more

he panicked, the more he sank.”

In Lewis’s dream about being a pear stem, Habeck heavily employs enjambment, continuing her phrases from one line of verse to the next without punctuation. This device simulates Lewis’s experience as he drowns, the flow of the words becoming unstoppable.

“Then Margaret darted away in a fury. Lewis watched her flutter away, recalling the last time a woman left him alone in the ocean. Both times he was passive. Both times he felt euphoric and then promptly forlorn.”

Though Margaret is a great white shark, Habeck uses verbs here that are more reminiscent of a small bird or flying insect. This word choice contributes to the broader motif of Lewis’s fascination with the sky rather than the sea. Additionally, these verbs reinforce Lewis’s subsequent comparison of Margaret to Wren, whose name associates her with birds.

“Eventually, Lewis was able to laugh, even marvel, at his own absurdities: I am a great white shark with mental health struggles!

I am a great white shark who knows Shakespeare!

I am a great white shark haunted by regret!

I am a great white shark who misses fruit!

I am a great white shark who speaks English!

I am a great white shark who’s been to the Grand Canyon!

I am a great white shark who will never forgive myself for leaving my wife!”

Lewis’s use of anaphora, the repetition of “I am a great white shark” at the start of every line, suggests that he is still trying to process and accept his physical transformation. The absurdity of his emotionally human experience juxtaposed with the reality of his new shark body is meant to be both humorous and conceptually challenging.

“Lewis, you’ve told me so much about Wren, sometimes I think I miss her, too. She would want you to be happy. She would want you to find joy.”

Margaret’s use of the past-tense subjunctive mood while talking about Wren evokes language used to refer to deceased loved ones. The sentence structure therefore highlights the mutual nature of Wren and Lewis’s loss. At the same time that Wren grieves Lewis as if he were dead, Lewis is grieving Wren as if she were dead.

“Wren called up to the bird quartet lingering on the tree branch above her: ‘I am an animal, too, you know.’”

Whereas before Wren pondered what it would be like to become another animal, here she recognizes her humanity as a form of animal existence. That she has this conversation with birds is symbolically significant, as Wren has been likened to birds frequently over the course of the novel.