A Childhood in Twenty Book Covers - Jaws by Peter Benchley

 

Jaws by Peter Benchley

Of all the book covers I will be blogging about over the coming weeks, the cover artwork for Peter Benchley’s 1974 horror/thriller Jaws is without doubt the most iconic^*1. Since its publication in hardback 51 years ago, the cover has barely changed – each piece of front cover artwork has been a variation on this same design^*2. It even became an integral part of the branding for Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film adaptation, being used on the theatrical poster. The image of the swimmer doing the breast-stroke on the surface of the water, with the shark swimming hungrily up towards her, huge mouth gaping and displaying rows of dangerously razor-sharp teeth has caused thousands of beachgoers to giggle nervously as they paddled further and further out into the sea; not really believing that a shark could be swimming around in the water with them, but keeping a sharp, watchful eye out for that tell-tale grey fin all the same.

When I was a kid, I was one of those nervous beachgoers.

The first time I saw the above book cover was in the late 1970s. Back then we were going on holiday every year to Newquay in Cornwall. We’d travel down by train for free as my dad worked for British Rail at the time^*3 and he had free train passes for himself and the family to travel by train^*4. We’d always go on holiday with my Aunty Marg and Uncle Jack^*5, but we’d never travel down together^*6. We used to catch separate trains from separate train stations and meet and meet up when we got there. We’d always rent separate caravans on the same site, or separate holiday apartments in the same apartment block, spend all day together, then go back to separate caravans/apartments for a sit down before going to bed.

It had been a particularly hot two weeks in Newquay, my dad had bought a little brass traditional Cornish Pisky (supposed to Pixie, but often mis-pronounced like this in Cornwall, apparently) and, as tradition dictated, he could give it a little rub in the evening and ask it to bring nice weather the following day^*7. It obviously worked, because most of the family was sunburnt by the end of the first week, and we went into the second week longing for cloudy days and nice cool northerly breezes. To get away from the intense heat of the sun for a while, we decided to take a stroll into the town and look in the local shops.

Newquay, like most coastal towns in Britain, had (and probably still has) a lot of shops selling everything for the beach-loving holiday maker^*8 – inflatables lilos and dingies^*9, beachballs, boules sets, cricket sets, windbreaks, roll-up straw beach mats and, of course, the good old trusty wire book spinners^*10.

As with James Herbert’s The Fog (see previous blog entry), it was on one of these spinners that I first saw this cover of Jaws. It was outside a shop that also sold naughty seaside postcards^*11 as well as T-shirts with wonderful artwork of one character telling another character to ‘Sod off!’ ^*12. I must have been 5 years old, and I remember picking the book up and wondering if there was anyone swimming in the sea off Newquay beach right now who was about to be eaten by a shark, just like on this book.

My Uncle Jack bought the book and read it on the beach during that second week. To me the cover was strangely exciting, as well as deeply unnerving, and I remember picking the book up and staring at that cover on the beach whenever he wasn’t reading it. It certainly made me wary about going into the sea for the rest of the holiday. It didn’t stop me going in, but it definitely made me question what was hiding beneath the surface of that dark blue-green water.

Flash forward 18 years. I’m now in my mid-20s and on holiday with a girlfriend in Bridlington.

By this time my appreciation for Spielberg’s movie version of the novel is considerable. I’ve watched the film every time it was broadcast on television since the early 80s (I even recorded it on VHS and rewatched it again and again.) Later, in the early 90s, I buy the Special Widescreen Edition released on video. After that I own it on Laser Disc.

During that holiday, we visited the aquarium in the harbour*¹³ and watching the tiny sharks and spider crabs swimming about in that dark bluey-grey water makes me think of the film Jaws. After a few minutes of walking along the harbour, watching the fishing boats unload and looking at the tiny boats moored along the stone walls, I suddenly thought of the novel all those years ago, and how the cover made me feel, and how it made me realise that there was so much life and activity going on underneath that dark surface that most of us never even think about.

I suddenly realised that I’d never actually read the novel of Jaws, despite having seen the film dozens of times. So there and then I decided to buy a copy of the book and read it while I was on holiday.

But I didn’t want a new copy with a newer cover – I wanted a copy with the cover that was permanently lodged in my mind’s eye. The one that loomed so large in my childhood holidays of nearly 20 years ago. Back then there were a number of good second-hand bookshops in Bridlington now*¹⁴, so looking round them would take a few hours, which was OK as we were enjoying a day of just wandering around the town anyhow. It took a while, but I managed to find a copy (or, at least, a copy that wasn’t nearly falling to bits), took it back to the caravan that belonged to my Aunty Marg and Uncle Jack*¹⁵, and over the course of the rest of the two week holiday read Benchley’s bestselling novel for the first time.

Somewhere along the line, over the next 30 years, I mislaid that copy of the book. I’ve replaced it with a new copy, but it’s not quite the same. The cover of the current imprint (see above) is beautiful and is identical to the 1975 theatrical poster, but it doesn’t quite have the same impact on me as the original cover. True, I’m not 5 years old anymore, but there’s something about that old cover - the murkiness of the water, perhaps? That it looks less inviting than the sky-blue water on the modern cover? Or that it looks like the woman is swimming in the dead of night, rather than in blazing sunshine? Or that the shark looks hungrier and meaner? I’m not sure. I’ve tried to work it out, but I can’t seem to explain it to my own satisfaction. It think what it boils down to is the cover from the late 1970s is more visceral and primitive, the surroundings darker, deadlier. It really feels like the swimmer has strayed into another, world, one we know very little about, one with immense hidden depths and hidden dangers.

Does that make sense? Well, it's the best I can manage.

A quick word on the novel itself. I like the book, I enjoy reading the book, but I always find it slightly…disappointing. It’s odd, as I’m someone who usually prefers the books to the often inferior or clumsy film adaptations. Even when I adore the film adaptations (David Lynch’s Dune, Ken Loach’s Kes, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange), I always prefer the original novels. But Benchley’s Jaws is an exception. It lacks both the immediacy of the drama or the impact of the film has. It simply doesn’t have the bite (pun intended). It’s a good book, but it’s not a great book. It’s a good book that became a great film.

It's also a good book that became a great piece of iconic artwork.

 

 

 

  

 

NOTES –

1 – I’m using that in its proper sense, not the 2020s misuse of throwing the word around when they actually mean ‘very famous’. Very few things are actually ‘iconic’. This cover *is* one of those few things.

2 – There have been a couple of different designs. The first UK hardback edition, for example, depicted a shark’s head with mouth wide open, inside the mouth could be seen a photo of a beach with adults and children paddling at the water’s edge. Another cover depicted the jawbones of a shark, open wide, with stylised artwork of the coast of Amity Island inside.

3 – He wasn’t anything exciting like a train driver, or a conductor, you understand. He worked in offices in the technical side of the company. Part of the design, construction and testing side.

4 – The train journey was seven and a half hours! How my poor parents managed to wrangle, entertain and generally keep quiet three young kids at that age I’ll never know.

5 – Not sure why, but we always did. We always went on holidays with Marg and Jack and I adored it. We all got on well and had a wonderful time on holiday, having lots of laughs and going on the occasional coach trips.

6 – Again, not sure why. Probably because we lived about 6 miles away from each other and it was easier to make our own way there, then meet up at a specific place as soon as we all got there. Also, when we moved into the 1980s, we’d start driving to holiday, in different cars.

7 – You know what – that very same Cornish Pisky is sitting on the desk next to me as I type this. The one my dad bought in Newquay in the late 1970s. My Dad gave him to me in February of this year. We were chatting about the Pisky while I was visiting my parents one weekend and, to my delight, my dad suddenly got up and fished him out of a draw. As he’d been sitting in the draw for years my dad said I may as well have him. Since then, I’ve taken that Pisky away on three holidays this year and given him a little rub every night and ask for good weather the next day, and you know what…apart from one day of rain in our last holiday (in July), every holiday has been scorchingly hot!

8 – My wife and I now call them Tat Shops.

9 – You can’t get either of these now, of course. They’re considered too dangerous. Thanks Health & Safety Nazis.

10 – Very rare that you find these now, as well. You can find them in charity shops. Just occasionally you’ll still find them outside shops, but now they’re all full of the usual Chick Lit, Chick Crime, Chick Thrillers. But back then they were full of great books for everyone – political thrillers, comedy novels, horror, SF, film & TV novelisations…

11 – I loved those saucy seaside postcards. They were such an integral part of British humour, from British Music Hall all the way up to television variety and comedy such as The Two Ronnies. I once thought about writing a book about the history of the saucy seaside postcard, but writer Marcus Hearn beat me to it. I’ve go his book and it’s wonderful.

12 – My mum loved that t-shirt. She always talked about buying one, but never did. They made a return a couple of years back, and I did think about picking one up for her.

13 – No longer there now, sadly. It was wonderful, and only the admission was only 30p – in the late 1990s!

14 – Not now. I live just up the coast from Bridlington now, so pop there for a day trip quite regularly and all those wonderful second-hand bookshops have closed down and are now cafes and things like that.

15 – It was a caravan that sat on a smallish horse-shoe shaped campsite that was full of books. Every shelf and cupboard seemed crammed to bursting with piles of paperbacks…but I’ll talk about that more in an upcoming blog post.