Chapters (46)
- Cover
- Other Titles
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Friday
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- Saturday
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- Sunday
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- Monday
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Shark Week: one of those necessary evils that feeds one part of Adam’s career while completely cannibalizing the rest. Before Shark Week, if you had a nature show you were lucky if you got a time slot on some public-access channel. But then shark docs were in demand and you just couldn’t pump them out fast enough. And that itself was the problem: suddenly everyone with a hand-held camera and a wetsuit started making shark docs and making them poorly, relying on bad science and shock value and calling them things like Monster Sharks! or Killer Sharks! or Sharkageddon! Of course ratings went through the roof; people would have Shark Week parties and invent drinking games and make brackets like it was some kind of sporting event. And now what Adam thought was the point of Shark Week was no longer the point of Shark Week. People weren’t learning to love sharks. They were learning to see them as monster freaks of the week.
And still Mark and Adam were out there every year tracking down this shark or that shark, trying to make the hunt sound sensational while at the same time injecting some real science into their shows. But people didn’t want real science. They wanted to see an animatronic shark take a bite out of a minivan, or a guy on a kneeboard trail behind a speedboat in chummed waters. They wanted prehistoric myths, they wanted death and destruction and mysterious circumstances. They wanted fucking lake sharks.
What Adam wants is another drink. But this bartender, she hates him. Her name is Lisa, and beautiful Lisa will not give him the time of day.
“Hey, Lisa,” Adam says. “Any chance of a refill?”
“Any chance you’re going to actually tip me?”
“Don’t be mad. I’m donating your tips to starving children in Africa.” Lisa just rolls her eyes, wings a pint of beer at him so the foam spills onto his pants.
“So what are you going to call your show?” Yasmine had asked him. “Monsters in the Lake or something?”
“Monsters in the Lake,” Adam repeated. “Has a nice ring to it, actually.”
She shook her head. “A fucking lake shark. I can’t even believe it.”