"You already know the end of his story: now find out where it all began."
Serving as a prequel to Spielberg's Jaws (the greatest film of all time), Robert Lautner reimagines the life of a truly iconic character.
I'm aware of Ryan Dacko's The Book of Quint (2023), but I might do that another time.
Summary
Just like Ishmael in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, story is told by Quint in first-person.
There's also chunks of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and predictably, Peter Benchley's original work.
As Quint travels across America, he arm-wrestles in San Francisco until some big Chinese fella beats him in the semi-finals, recalls the harrowing events aboard the USS Indianapolis and meets Ben Gardener and Frank Silva in Amity.
Of course, there's no Brody or Hooper.
In the Author's Note section, Lautner acknowledges two other books (other than Jaws, obviously), that helped fuel the engine of his own.
Doug Stanton's In Harm's Way (Indianapolis) and In the Slick of the Cricket by Russell Drumm, (portrait of Montauk fishing captain Frank Mundus).
Despite being the inspiration for Quint, Mundus didn't receive credit in novel or film.
Sonofabitch
At the end of EVERY chapter, we get an excerpt from Carlo Lorenzini's The Adventures of Pinocchio (commonly shortened to just Pinocchio).
Quint says he liked the cartoon (1940 Disney film) and the only book he was given.
Anyway, here's to swimming with bowlegged women.
Son of a violent alcoholic and the same height since eleven, Quint was born in 1924 (no date or month) and signed for the army at 19 in 1943.
Aged just 27, he was married thrice, to Amanda, Carole and Effa respectively.
Effa died of pneumonia in 1953.
Quint visits Italian carpenter Danny Felix and instructs him to remove the lettering of K and N from his boat the Akron and create C, rearranged to spell Orca.
Cute.
The jaws of the biggest shark he caught, "He-Who-Took-His-Brother's-Head", are eventually mounted on the front of his flybridge.
Also, Quint mentions he has an appointment to get a tattoo removed at the hospital.
Don't tell me, don't tell me... "Mother."
During 'epilogue', our man reveals he bought a plot of land off South Beach from a 'smarmy jack-ass' named Vaughn, just big enough for him to build a wooden shack.
And just for pleasure boating and day sailing, Albert Morris runs Amity Hardware.
Jesus h. Christ
While a pretty enjoyable read, written word contains some unbelievable goofs.
Prologue
Amity Island, January 1977
Everyone remembers our summer of '75¹, and even those who weren't residents at the time have heard the stories.
²Our chief of police had taken it upon himself to hire, from our dollars, a local fisherman to go out with some oceanographic fellow to hunt a suggested shark that had supposedly injured some bathers along our beautiful shores in the days before our Fourth of July weekend here on our beloved island.
Reluctantly I myself sanctioned his request, if only to placate the concerns of a small minority of our residents and to exercise every available option if indeed there was any risk to the populace's and visitor's beach activities over the holiday weekend.
What followed was a terrible disaster which resulted in not only the loss of a vessel but the death of our very own Captain Quint, the owner of said vessel. Fortunately the season was not too unduly spoiled and Amity still remains the choice destination for our discerning friends everywhere. Amity, as you know, means friendship.
As it was I, in my former capacity as realtor on the island, who had originally leased Mister Quint from which he operated his charter business, and the deceased having no known living family, I appointed myself his executor as is within my remit as freeholder of his land.
Although not a popular islander Mister Quint was certainly known and respected throughout our community and his death saddened a fair few of us, particularly Salvatore, local fisherman who sometimes assisted Quint with his charters.
It was only after I accepted his estate and effects that I established that Mister Quint was a war veteran and, surprisingly, a survivor of one of the greatest naval tragedies in US history.
This manuscript, written sometime around 1968³, was part of his effects and thus in my ownership. Apart from some artistic embellishments⁴ from the publisher it is as I took possession of it.
Larry Vaughn, Mayor
¹Released in 1975, but takes place in 1974.
Here's the proof.
 |
7-1-74 and 7-2-74.
|
Timeline is soon contradicted.
 |
| A $3000.00 bounty to the man or men who catch and kill the shark that killed Alex M. Kintner on Sunday June 29th Amity Town Beach. |
Chrissie was killed before Alex and to compound error, June 29th fell on a Saturday, not Sunday.
 |
Jaws 2
Brody was awarded "Amity Man of the Year" at some point in 1975. |
Yeah, at least six months after he destroyed the first shark.
BULLSHIT.
²I know he's reminiscing, but paragraph is still bizarre.
"to hunt a suggested shark that had supposedly injured some bathers"
Actual quote:
[to reporter] I'm pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers
"in the days before our Fourth of July weekend here on our beloved island"
The Mayor of Shark City finally agreed to pay Quint $10,000 to kill the shark on the 4th of July.
³sometime around 1968?
Epilogue begins:
"I'm writing this at Christmas in '68."
⁴artistic embellishments?
Was this a fruitless ass-covering exercise?
If so, tactic didn't work.
Q & A
3. Why is the note dated 1977?
The great Murray Hamilton, who played Vaughn, also appeared in Jaws 2. I set the letter prior to the events of that film for timing. I did a similar thing with Quint's age. In 1968, at the time of the novel, my Quint is 44⁵ years old. If we move the timeline⁶ forward to the events of Jaws, my Quint would be the same age⁷ as Robert Shaw when he died at only 51. I felt that fitting and respectful. Everyone thinks Quint is older, but he was only 48⁸ in Jaws, just five⁹ years older than Roy Scheider's Brody; but he plays off the 'old man of the sea' so brilliantly that everyone interprets him as older.
Okay, this is complicated.
⁵As already established, character was born in 1924, so 44 in 1968. Fine.
Because of Prologue, shit automatically unravels.
⁶Moving timeline forward (seven years) has film occur in 1975 (wrong).
⁷In his world, Lautner is correct, but...
⁸When Jaws was released on 20 June 1975, Shaw was still 47, and wouldn't be 48 until 9 August.
⁹Playing devil's advocate, Lautner infers Scheider was 43, not 42.
However, Shaw was indeed five years older than Scheider, but 'his' Quint died aged 50, not 51.
As a chilling coincidence, Shaw was born at 51 King Street in Westhoughton, Lancashire.
Farewell and adieu.
