The Shark Net: Memories and Murder [Paperback]

Robert Drewe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 2001

Written with the same lyrical intensity and spellbinding prose that has won Robert Drewe's fiction international acclaim, The Shark Net is set in the 1950s in a city haunted by the menace of an elusive serial killer. Drewe's youth in the middle-class seaside suburb of Perth, Australia-often described as the most isolated city in the world-takes a sinister turn when a social outcast (who turns out to be an employee of Drewe's father) embarks on a five-year murder spree. This unusual memoir brilliantly evokes the confluence of adolescent innocence and sexual awakening while a hare-lipped killer who eventually murders eight people, including one of Drewe's friends, lurks in the shadows.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At first glance, this memoir is reminiscent of such classic true crime memoirs as Ann Rule's A Stranger Beside MeAbut Australian literary sensation Drewe (The Drowner, etc.) has more in mind than sharp reportage here. He looks back at the years, in his youth, when his hometown was racked by a series of brutal murders. Reflecting on these killingsAincluding that of a boy who'd been his friendAopens up a gloomy window onto Drewe's lonely childhood. His family had moved from cosmopolitan Melbourne to the "sandy moonscape" of 1950s Perth in western Australia. Drewe starkly renders this isolated realm of provincial whispers, suburban boredom and frustration. His father, a rising star with his employer, is distant in every way: he only half jokes that he loves the company more than his wife, and rarely engages Drewe and his brother in any father-son activities. Drewe's mother is no less remote for her overprotectiveness; over time, her spiritually empty moralizing grows vicious. This emotional climate makes Drewe's adolescent traumas surrealAand complements perfectly his account of the senseless and random murders, which at times is deeply affecting. Unfortunately, in his first major work of nonfiction, the author's anecdotes frequently go nowhere. As a result, the bookAwhich drifts along lazily instead of dreamilyAisn't as effective as it could have been. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Drewe, an Australian novelist, playwright, and journalist, comes close to nailing it in this work of nonfictionDa coming-of-age, true-crime story. Growing up the eldest son of an upwardly mobile businessman, he lived what in many respects was an idyllic life amid Perth's bountiful sun and sand. However, there lurked a Peeping Tom, an unplanned pregnancy, and the death of a parent (precipitated, perhaps, by the actions of the son). And half a decade of murders: one victim a friend of the author, one murder committed with another friend's hatchet, and all eight done by a man known by the author. In his recounting of these events of his formative years, Drewe succeeds in reminding us that the dark side is always near. However, as the book progresses, we find ourselves wanting to know more about the murdererDan unusual combination of serial and spree killer who struck with rifle, hatchet, and even automobileDand perhaps less about the author. Recommended for larger public libraries.DJim Burns, Ottumwa P.L., IA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (July 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141001968
• ISBN-13: 978-0141001968
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,117,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laughter, pain , and a real life serial killer., July 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Shark Net (Hardcover)

There have been some great "teenager growing up" books - and I thought this funny/sometimes sad book is a stand out in a very strong genre.

I know Robert Drewe is one of Australia's best, and best liked writers. It turns out he lived what seems an ordinary childfhood, in quite extraordinary settings. His father was the bombastic company man for Dunlop in West Australia - a regional big cheese, odious but tasty. That brings young Drewe into contact with interesting people such as the tennis stars Dunlop sponsors, like Hoad and Rosewall.

And also with a serial killer who was knocking off Drewe's friends, while working for his dad. Hell of a back drop.

The young Drewe is hardly the sensitive youth.He has the balanced perspective of a 16year old male who understands there is no more exciting prospect in life than copping his first feel.Maybe that gets to what I like most about this book -- Drewe's memories and insights of the ordinary things most of us recognise.

Sort of thing where you laugh out loud, look down and realise, hey that's also a knife he stuck in your gut.

It's a very enjoyable, satisfying book.He uses the serial killer skilfully to give it a wonderful construction.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sand, sharks and suburbs, May 20, 2001

By 

Stephen Wilks (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Shark Net (Hardcover)

The Shark Net is one of those rare memoirs that succeed in being almost as haunting to the reader as the events it describes are to the author himself. It is Robert Drewe's story of his childhood and early adulthood from the late `40s to the early `60s in the Western Australian city of Perth, then as now a city defined by a deep awareness of its geographic isolation.

The story that unfolds bears some similarity to John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Both books elegantly weave a tale of real-life mayhem into descriptions of the social fabric of an isolated city. The difference is that Berendt's tale of the anachronistic charms of Savannah, Georgia is far more light-hearted than Drewe's grim account. The Shark Net is built around a series of random serial murders that erupt into the narrative to create an overpowering sense of menace. It is also a much more personal book, in which Drewe tries to confront his memories of these murders and other tragedies that intruded into his formative years in sunny Perth. The killer and his crimes directly touched on Drewe's life at several points, not least of which is that one of the random victims is a close boyhood friend, despite it being Drewe who had once unwittingly met the killer.

Drewe also re-creates his family life, but not wholly lovingly. He documents with painful understatement the emotional inhibitions of his parents, and the decline of their marriage. His father was an emotionally unexpressive man whose few passions include a near religious dedication to his employer, the Dunlop rubber company. His only expressed reaction to the news that his son is about to become a teenage father is concern about the company's reaction. The book ends with Drewe being surprised by his eagerness to leave provincial Perth to work on a big city newspaper in Melbourne.

This is riveting book, that will grip Australian readers and those overseas. Its tone is of a man who in middle age is now compelled to look back on events with a mixture of sadness and greater understanding. It is quite complex in structure, with several flashes forward in time and interludes into the mind of the killer, but uses a clear prose style that keeps the story moving along effortlessly. It is also beautifully evocative of a time and a place. This is the book that Robert Drewe had to write for himself, and we should all be grateful that he has done so.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Shark Net, July 29, 2004

By 

Daniel Wylie "fat swede" (Hobart, TAS, AUS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Shark Net: Memories and Murder (Paperback)

I really liked this book, it was incredibly easy to read, not to mention enjoyable. A great little lesson in a piece of Australian history that is seemingly unknown by Generation Y (I'm 17, and had no previous knowledge of this tale), Robert Drewe uses his writing talent to the nth degree in a book which covers the funny and the saddening. I can recommend this book to anyone, more so overseas readers who want to discover a bit of Australian 'culture', if that's the word to use (probably not, but you know what i mean!).