Shark is the tenth novel by Will Self, published in 2014.
The stream-of-consciousness novel continues the story of psychiatrist Zack Busner.
The novel is written in a flowing fashion without chapters and with no paragraph breaks. It is "a book-length paragraph, beginning and ending mid-sentence", which hops "between characters and time periods with the agility of a mountain goat."
Self indicated that Umbrella was the first part of a trilogy against his own initial expectations. The final part of the trilogy is Phone.
Writing for The Sunday Times, Theo Tait wrote... <blockquote>"Overall, Shark generates a dream-like synthesis of rational and irrational, familiar and strange... itâÂÂs clear that, with this trilogy, Self is creating something rather grand."</blockquote>
Stuart Kelly, writing for The Guardian wrote... <blockquote>"Shark" is angrier, more brutal and more intense: it made me furious, not melancholic. But the book itself is also a paean to books...."Shark" confirms that Self is the most daring and delightful novelist of his generation, a writer whose formidable intellect is mercilessly targeted on the limits of the cerebral as a means of understanding. Yes, he makes you think, but he also insists that you feel" </blockquote>
Writing for the New York Times, Mark Athitakis wrote... <blockquote>"Shark often reads like a baggy mess. Yet itâÂÂs a mess that reflects a respectable urge to capture the mental and social collapse Self sees as a legacy of the world wars."</blockquote>
Writing for The Times, Melissa Katsoulis wrote... <blockquote>"ItâÂÂs bewildering, exhausting and so relentlessly out of focus that unless you are a disenfranchised English student hopped up on caffeine pills and a hatred of Thomas Hardy, youâÂÂre unlikely to make it through to the end, still less part with nearly ã20 for it."</blockquote>