Everything Is Teeth

Wyld's graphic memoir reflects on her youthful fascination with and horror of sharks and reveals glimpses of her adult life. Much of the work takes place at her family's summer home in rural, coastal Australia. Here young Evie senses sharks everywhere—in the river and ocean but also swimming next to the truck or through the crops. She finds a book called Shark Attack and idolizes Rodney Fox, a survivor whose wounds are graphically depicted. Back in Peckham, England, Evie fears sharks in her bath and while on the sofa or in her bed. Her brother starts coming home with signs of being beaten, and he takes comfort in the stories, real and imagined, that Evie tells him of shark attacks. She watches Jaws with her father as he drinks glass after glass of wine. Back in Australia, the young woman has some shark-themed excursions with her family and experiences more shark worries, including imagining her brother and mother being killed by one. Throughout, these animals are a source of dread as well as stand-ins for other anxieties. While the other members of her family display a broad range of emotions, Evie almost always looks concerned, fretful, trepidatious in the illustrations. The beak-nosed people and sparse landscapes are in stark black-and-white, with color appearing only rarely, notably in the various sea creatures depicted.