Summary
With the 1974 publication of the novel Jaws and the release a year later of the film based on the book, an American cultural phenomenon was born. Today, the remarkable bestseller by Peter Benchley still towers as a thrilling classic of suspense, drama, and the eternal conflicts of man against nature ... and man against himself.
As the movie continues to broadcast all over the world, entire generations may know the Jaws story only through its cinematic rendition. Those unfamiliar with the literary forerunner are in for a wonderful surprise, for the novel contains many twists of plot and character that were omitted in the film. Peter Benchley's Jaws is an extraordinary experience of its own, a masterpiece as mesmerizing today as it was in 1974, when it first took us into the watery world of a creature designed by nature to kill ... and into the terror it brings from the silent darkness of the deep.
Peter Benchley was born on May 8, 1940, in New York into one of America's most celebrated literary families. His grandfather was the humorist Robert Benchley and his father the novelist Nathaniel Benchley. A 1961 Harvard graduate, Peter Benchley started out as a reporter for the Washington Post before going on to work as an associate editor for Newsweek. From 1967 to 1969 he was a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson.
Benchley's interest in the sea, stemming from childhood summers spent on the coast of Nantucket, led to his meticulously researching the subject of sharks and writing such bestselling and critically acclaimed novels as The Deep, Whiteshark, and Jaws. Jaws was later adapted into a blockbuster movie (1975). Two of his other books were turned into the made-for-TV movies, The Beast and The Creature. He has also written numerous reviews and articles for magazines and newspapers, and has appeared in more than a dozen television documentaries about marine life and oceans.
Benchley died from pulmonary fibrosis on February 12, 2006 at the age of 65.
(Bowker Author Biography)
