I am incredibly scared of the world in Stephen Hall’s stunning debut novel. In it, Eric Sanderson wakes to find that he has no personalized memories. He can recognize objects for what they are, but when he looks in a mirror, he does not recognize the face staring back at him. Mr. Sanderson finds a note from “the first Eric Sanderson” and is directed to a psychiatrist, Dr. Randle, who reveals that Eric has a history of memory loss. He also learns that the love of his life is dead, and that this is the eleventh time that he has woken without knowing anything about himself. Eric Sanderson is, in essence, the ultimate empty shell.

Dr. Randle is at a loss to explain why this continues to happen to Eric, and he wills himself to be as unconcerned as possible with his lack of personal history. His life, it seems, could go on forever with him just watching the television, feeding the cat and generally being a spinster while he ignores the regular letters that continue to come from the first Eric Sanderson.

Then, without warning, a shark jumps out of the television and attacks him. He opens the letters from his former self and discovers that he is the favored prey of a shark that feeds entirely on memories. He sets off to discover why this shark is after him and, naturally, how to stop it. In this quest, he encounters a mystifying world, where letter bombs are made with actual letters and phone books form the walls of labyrinths.
Hall’s worldview is simply awe-inspiring – what if all we really forgot our keys on the kitchen table because a small conceptual fish was hungry? What if Alzheimer’s is nothing more than a whole school of these hungry fish? And what if we could actually drink the concept of water? The metaphysical possibilities are endless, although Hall has fun explaining some of them. My personal favorite in the book is a sinister person, Mycroft Ward, who aims to control all of the information in the world. Perhaps this is a bit too close to our real-world friends at Google, but I chose to take it as the fun character sketch rather than a social commentary.

This novel is just that – novel. While some parts are a bit tedious – there’s a 50-page flip-book portion to the end that’s easy enough to skim – the overall effect is mesmerizing. Hall combines the best of other genre-busters, such as Fight Club and Trainspotting, with his own unique voice. And while this review might make it sound as if Raw Shark Texts is a moderately difficult piece of philosophy, the truth is that this is, at its heart, a fast-paced action book. In fact, while I was reading through, I found myself wondering when the movie was coming out. I hope that it’s soon.

This is probably the most refreshing book that I’ve read in years. Unlike other authors, who seem to believe that the only way to say something unique is to mash up their prose to the point where reading them is a chore, Hall’s is just choppy enough to get you to pay attention while still remaining readable. This is the thinking person’s beach book (at least, as long as you don’t think too hard, lest a shark come along to eat your thoughts).