Book Summary and Reviews of The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

The Raw Shark Texts

A Novel

by Steven Hall

  • Published:
  • Apr 2007, 448 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

First things first, stay calm.

Eric Sanderson wakes up one day with no idea who or where he is. A note instructs him to call a Dr. Randle, who informs him that he is undergoing yet another episode of memory loss and that for the last two years the since the tragic death of his great love, Clio, while vacationing in Greece he's been suffering from an acute disassociative disorder. But there may be more to the story, or it may be a different story altogether. As Eric Sanderson begins to examine letters and papers left behind by "the first Eric Sanderson" and the staggering tale they seem to contain, he and the reader embark on a quest to recover the truth and to escape the predatory forces that threaten to devour him. Moving with the pace and momentum of a superb thriller, exploring ideas about language and information as well as identity, The Raw Shark Texts is ultimately a novel about the magnitude of love and the devastating effect of losing that love.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Clever, exciting, funny and moving." ―Sunday Times

"A horror-dystopic-philosophical mash-up that has critics drawing comparisons to Borges."―New York Times

"Jaws meets Alice in Wonderland ... An avant-garde thriller in which these devil-fish of the unconscious somehow escape the symbolic realm." ―Times Literary Supplement

This information about The Raw Shark Texts was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Steven Hall

Steven Hall was born in 1975. His 'Stories for a Phone Book' featured in New Writing 13. The Raw Shark Texts is his first novel and won the Borders Original Voices Award and the Somerset Maugham Award. It has been translated into twenty-nine languages and film rights have been optioned by Film Four. Steven was chosen by Granta Magazine in 2013 as one of the decade's Best Young British Novelists. He lives in Hull, England.

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