Shark Heart: A Love Story

During her “A Novel Idea” capstone talk, Habeck described this portion of the book as “reflect[ing] a play that [she has] long admired, that is a seminal work in the theater of the absurd tradition, and it’s called Waiting for Godot” (“A Novel Idea 2024: Emily Habeck.” Deschutes Public Library, 2024). She goes on to draw a comparison between how the characters in Beckett’s famous absurdist masterwork endlessly wait for another character and Lewis’s endless wait to find company. More broadly, however, this third act of the novel leans the furthest into absurdist tendencies, depicting sharks speaking English with one another and singing pop hits.

As with the previous parts of the book, Part 3 is aware of itself. Lewis too recognizes the strangeness of his situation: “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 will never forgive myself for leaving my wife!” (360-61). This self-categorization within the absurdist genre is another example of how Lewis views Life as Metatheater and a continuation of the novel’s metatheatrical elements.

Other metatheatrical techniques are heightened in Part 3. This is especially true of the role of the third-person omniscient narrator, who suddenly begins to infringe on the body of the text in the form of footnotes. These footnotes directly address the reader, divulging the inner workings of Margaret and Lewis’s minds. For example, the narrator reveals Margaret’s crush on Lewis in one such footnote: “¹Margaret C. Finnegan was developing a crush. She had never had a crush (only read about them), and she had only the object of her crush (Lewis) with whom to discuss the symptoms” (345). This change in form gives this section a more experimental tone than the others, in keeping with Habeck’s intention of emulating the highly experimental Waiting for Godot. It also plays with the notion that Lewis and Margaret are “part human, part animal” (319). In glossing Lewis’s story, Habeck implies that his animal life and consciousness have become entirely dissimilar to his human one, even though in practice, much of that story transpires exactly as it would if Lewis were physically human (e.g., via dialogue). The effect is to erode the supposed distinction between human and animal, implying an underlying continuity or fluidity of experience.

These fourth-wall breaks also reflect the book’s ongoing debt to Our Town, its primary theatrical reference point. Margaret’s desire to build a shark “town” is a particularly pointed reference to the title of Our Town, while the idea of a town made of stories, which she and Lewis eventually develop, aptly describes the fictional township of Grover’s Corners in Our Town. The creative endeavor of imagining his own community with Margaret helps to resolve Lewis’s sense of loss over not being able to complete his year directing the student production of Our Town. The mundanities of their imaginary shark town—it is filled with American Girl Dolls and a Blockbuster Video store—are a modern reinterpretation of the mundanities in turn-of-the-20th-century Grover’s Corners. Lewis lives out his previously stated conviction in life as metatheater by turning his life as a shark into a revamped, absurdist production of Our Town.