Jaws by Peter Benchley

By Nate Feldman

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the 1975 movie Jaws, I decided to read the novel it was based on.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Amity island, located off of Long Island, is terrorized by a Great White Shark that is killing people in the local waters.  Chief Martin Brody wants to close the beaches, but the local Mayor Larry Vaughn is against this for economic reasons.  When more people die, Brody joins forces with Matt Hooper, an out of town oceanographer, and Quint, a local fisherman to stop this menace.

Both the movie and novel have this main premise, but there are significant differences between the two stories.

In the movie, Chief Brody and his wife Ellen have a more loving relationship.  They also have two children, Sean and Michael.  In the movie, they have three children with mostly different names.  Also, Ellen is frustrated with the marriage.  For that reason, she has an affair with Hooper, who was the younger brother of a previous boyfriend.  In the movie, although Ellen and Hooper meet when he comes over for dinner, there is no relationship between them, nor is there any mention of them previously knowing one another.  The triangle between these three is a major source of tension in the novel which is non-existent in the film.

Nevertheless, I found the novel a great page-turner, and while there are many things I prefer about the film, there is a lot to enjoy in the book as well.

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