The Shark-Infested Custard (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Okay, so I loved this, but I can't decide whether to give it three or four stars. It lost some steam towards the end, and also I felt like a book that's told from the perspective of four different people needs to make a stronger and more successful effort to differentiate their voices.... BUT, this ruled and I really did enjoy reading it. For some reason it reminded me of Jacqueline Susann, but for/about men instead of women, and set in the seventies.I recently got into a really embarrassing fight with a stranger on facebook when I overreacted to moralizing about my refined sugar consumption and other vices; I count books like this among the things I love that are shameful and likely giving me cancer. Recently I've stalled out on books with any nutritional value or moral virtue, and The Shark Infested Custard was the perfect antidote to that, basically a KFC Double Down topped with whipped cream and washed down with scotch. If you've recently quit smoking, drinking, sex, pills, or pretty much anything else fun, this might be a good read because a) it feels deliciously bad for you and b) it makes all those things I just listed seem totally gross.In case you did not, as I didn't, "get" the title, The Shark Infested Custard takes its title from what Willeford calls an "old Miami riddle": "What is sweet, bright yellow, and extremely dangerous?" Apparently there is also a British kiddie TV show called this, after the same joke, which seems odd considering how well the title worked to convey the lethal sleaze of 1970s Miami.Aw, hell, I'm giving this thing another star because I really did enjoy it. The best thing about the book is that it's from the point of view of these completely screwed up, horrible, unsympathetic guys, but it never breaks character or winks or gets meta for even a moment, and so you really do see things from their perspective. I would guess that most of the people whom I like and respect would really hate this book and, by extension, would hate me for liking it, so I don't recommend it unless you're a bad person or have at least got a wide unsavory streak.-----------------------------------I'm only on page thirty, but this is one of the most fucked-up books I've started in kind of a long time.In other words, so far it's pretty awesome. I've already learned a new (to me) term, "strange," my new favorite-ever slang for pussy, and one of the main characters' outfits was described like this:Hank came into the living room, looking and smelling like a jai-alai player on his night off. He wore white shoes with leather tassels, and a magenta slack suit with a silk blue-and-red paisley scarf tucked in around the collar. Hank had three other tailored suits like the magenta -- wheat, blue, and chocolate -- but I hadn't seen the magenta before. The high-waisted pants, with an uncuffed flare, were double-knits, and so tight in front his equipment looked like a money bag. The short-sleeved jacket was a beltless, modified version of a bush jacket, with huge bellows side pockets.Don was the only one of us with long hair, that is, long enough, the way we all wanted to wear it. Because of our jobs, we couldn't get away with hair as long as Don's. Hank had fluffed his hair with an air-comb, and it looked much fuller than it did when he slicked it down with spray to call on doctors."Isn't that a new outfit?" Eddie said."I've had it awhile," Hank said, going to the table to build a drink. "It's the first time I've worn it, is all. I ordered the suit from a small swatch of material. Then when it was made into a suit, I saw that it was a little too much." He shrugged. "But it'll do for a drive-in, I think.""There's nothing wrong with that color, Hank," Don said. "I like it."Hank added two more ice cubes to his Scotch and soda. "It makes my face look red, is all.""Your face is red," I said."But not as red as this magenta makes it look.""When you pay us off tonight," Eddie said, "it'll match perfectly."Unfortunately, I can't tell you the really fucked-up stuff, because that would be spoiling. But hopefully you've gotten a taste of its obvious awesome.
The Shark Infested Custard is told in four parts, each part told in the first person from the perspective of one of the four lead characters. Willeford manages to produce four different voices and to provide a nice depth of characterization. The dialogue is spot-on, and the scenes are well penned, some of them very well so. There are some very nice observational touches throughout, especially Hank’s amateur psychology readings of other people, although this is tempered by some fairly explicit sexism and some political incorrectness around race. For me, it was the plot that was the weakest element of the book. Each part is an extended short story, with each intersecting with the others. In some places, the story didn’t really seem to be moving anywhere other than building the character. There just seemed to be little forward momentum and if I’d lost the book, I wouldn’t have felt compelled to buy another to find out how the book ended. And collectively the four parts didn’t seem to be adding up to more than the sum of the parts. That is, until the last few pages. Often novels seem to tail off at the end, whereas this one finished with a flurry that had the effect of lifting the whole book. Indeed, it is interesting that a day or so after finishing it, my opinion of its merits is much higher than when I was actually reading it. Overall, an uneven story that has some flashes of brilliance.
What do You think about The Shark-Infested Custard (2005)?
I couldn't get through this, although I love Williford's Hoke Mosely novels. As others have said, it's not a novel at all but a series of four stories about four guys who live in a singles complex in Florida. There's an interesting perspective on dating and sex, a little crime, and so on. The only really interesting thing about this is that there are precursors to some of the details in the Mosely novels. For instance, there's a woman with dark patches of underarm hair who excites a "detail" man (salesman) for a pharmaceutical company -- in the Mosely books, Mosely's partner Ellita has the same thick dark patches of underarm hair and she has a pivotal relationship with a detail man. Beyond that, the book lacks charm and structure. More of an exercise than a completed work.
—Tom Burka
I fucking adore Willeford (avatar = hint) it's his encyclopedic knowledge of the minutiae of life in the US (under capitalism?) coupled with such a keen eye for human detail and always this otherness, an openness in his books that makes all his characters no matter how unbelievable and unpredictable their actions appear entirely convincing. He can for example spend three pages discussing how a tax-deductible PR report altered the sales plan of a trans-atlantic silverware company before seamlessly going into how this is now affecting the robbery choices of one of the protagonists...he is fucking great. (um, I liked the book)
—Benjamin Montero
Absolutely tremendous. What I think makes Willeford a genuine great American author is his ability to make create a situation that makes me howl with laughter then,seconds later,shudder with despair. His take on bachelor life in 70s Miami is a shag carpeted hellscape,where the sexual liberation of the late 60s has mutated into a machismo drenched game of ones up man-ship where the four bachelors gloat over recent bed room conquests like a fantasy football league. Titillation followed by a moralistic finger wagging is common tactic for crime/mystery writers, Willeford opts to entwine the exhilarating with the horrific.
—Gabe
