Jaws (novel) Jaws (novel) Jaws is a 1974 novel by American writer Peter Benchley. It tells the story of a great white shark that preys upon a small resort town and the voyage of three men trying to kill it. The novel grew out of Benchley's interest in shark attacks after he learned about the exploits of shark fisherman Frank Mundus in 1964. Doubleday commissioned him to write the novel in 1971, a period when Benchley struggled as a freelance journalist. Through a marketing campaign orchestrated by Doubleday and paperback publisher Bantam, "Jaws" was incorporated into many book sales clubs catalogues and
Jaws (film) taken advantage of in the way the audience is conditioned to associate the shark with its theme, which is exploited toward the film's climax when the shark suddenly appears with no musical introduction. Spielberg later said that without Williams's score the film would have been only half as successful, and according to Williams it jumpstarted his career. He had previously scored Spielberg's debut feature, "The Sugarland Express", and went on to collaborate with the director on almost all of his films. The original soundtrack for "Jaws" was released by MCA Records on LP in 1975, and as a CD in