The Shark-Infested Custard

'The Shark-Infested Custard' has the feel of other Willeford crime novels set in Miami (eg, 'Miami Blues'). It evokes the 1970s Miami atmosphere beautifully, and his characterizations of beer-swizzling, womanizing middle-aged men are very well drawn. Yet this novel is a departure from other Willeford novels, and I've read nearly all of them, in that it is actually interlacing stories rather than a straight novel. Four buddies who play together give tell their own story from their own perpectives. These guys get into mischief, and murder. It's all very believable. Like most Charles Willeford novels, 'The Shark-Infested Custard' is probably best enjoyed by middle-aged/older men who can empathize with the plight of angst-ridden, hormonally drenched men who can't seem to grow up. Women are not likely to find it endearing whatsoever. Bottom line: one of Willeford's better novels. Recommended.

The Shark Infested Custard by Charles Willeford is hard to categorize, even harder to review and impossible to forget. It's about four young men who are the best of friends. Four average guys who happen to be extremely shallow, selfish and misogynistic. To put it more bluntly, they're sleazeballs pure and simple. Most of the action takes place in Miami. It's the 1970's. Larry is an ex-cop, Hank a pharmaceutical detail man, Eddie a pilot, and Don a silverware salesman. All four are tenants of Dade Towers, a singles only apartment complex. Life for them could not be better, especially when it comes to having plenty of promiscuous sex. Willeford divides the novel into four parts. Part I is narrated by Larry. In it, Hank makes a knuckleheaded bet with the other three. He stands to win $60 if he can pick up a woman at a drive-in movie. What starts out as a comic romp turns to tragedy as two people wind up dead before the night is through. (As an aside, this part of The Shark Infested Custard has since been republished as a stand alone short story entitled Saturday Night Special in a Willeford collection called The Second Half of the Double Feature, 2003). Hank narrates Part II. He describes an ill fated affair he has with a mystery woman named Miss Jannaire. It's wickedly funny, and like Part I, has a killing in it. And there's an unexpected twist at the end which Alfred Hitchcock would appreciate. For Part III, Willeford goes to a third person narration. By this time, Larry and Hank have moved out of state for career advancement. Eddie is shacked up with a rich widow who bores him to tears and Don has moved back to the suburbs to be with his wife, a woman he detests with a passion. This portion of the book is primarily about a harebrained scheme Don has developed to escape from his spouse. In Part IV, the narration is once again provided by Larry. The Four Musketeers have been reunited and they celebrate their friendship and their overall good fortune. But there's a shocking ending which will leave you slack-jawed. No one writes like Charles Willeford. The Shark Infested Custard is filled with riotously funny observations presented in deadpan fashion. The four main characters are truly remarkable literary creations. I think it's their complete and utter ordinariness that makes their selfish, antisocial behavior all the more disturbing. This is a book like no other. Funny and shocking at the same time. Read The Shark Infested Custard. I can guarantee you will not be bored.

Even the title is intriguing, although it has little to do with the story behind it. After savoring the title, you will find that this is a real "buddies" yarn, consisting largely of first-person versions of the same events seen from different points of view. The four main characters, though differing considerably in personality and profession, have in common their age (mid-30's), residence (Miami apartment complex), and an interest in picking up women. In fact, it is the pickup game that leads to the inconvenient incident of the teenage druggie dying of an overdose in the car. Willeford uses this event to introduce the idea that these men are not just drinking pals but that their relationship pervades their lives in various ways. We see how they complement one another in collaborating to get rid of the body. And this sort of problem occurs a couple more times, since they do have this difficulty with handguns in that whenever a pistol appears, someone ends up embarrassingly dead. But Willeford disposes of the bodies between chapters, without bothering the reader with details. Because he is not writing a crime novel. These violent happenings are introduced to see how the four friends will react as a group. He manages to create plenty of suspense by dealing with how the group collaborates in solving their individual and complicated domestic problems. And he is inventive enough to keep the reader hooked until the end. Willeford's expert writing provides a transparent window into his characters' lives. He is so accomplished that you almost think you could do it yourself. As in other of his novels, he finds opportunity to satirize men's clothing styles (early on, he discovered the vein of humor uncovered by whoever induced men, or their wives, to believe that male clothing styles should change every year or so - remember the Nehru jacket?). I read this book while recuperating from minor abdominal surgery, and the description of the "makout" attire affected by one of the buddies put me in danger of literally splitting my sides. All in all, this book is among the best from an always superior writer.

Willeford himself considered this his best book and if you read it you'll see why. Technically a novel, the book is really short storie with the same characters--four sociopathic swingers in Miami. Set in the seventies, the plot may have been too risque for its time, but with movies like Pulp Fiction and In the Company of Men invading our pop culture the bleak story is more timely than ever. A masterpiece of crime fiction.