Everything Is Teeth

When I was four years old, I discovered sharks. We were on a family trip out to California to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousin. They lived in San Jose, but we would take many family trips to the ocean up and down the coastline between San Francisco and Monterey. This meant that there was a lot of driving to be had, and ya gotta find ways to spend the time. My parents bought my cousin, who is a few years older than me, a cassette tape and accompanying book about sharks. It was short and informational, but it did have some kind of creepy music to go with it. Because “Jaws”, probably. Turns out, it was too much for my cousin, who thought that it was way too scary to listen to. My parents, not wanting to waste the thing, gave it to me, show more four year old Kate, thinking that maybe I’d be able to handle it. And I guess I pulled a full Raffi on them, insisting they play it over, and over, and OVER again the entire trip… And then more when we got back home to Minnesota. And thus, my lifelong love of sharks was born.

So the graphic memoir “Everything is Teeth” by Evie Wyld is so incredibly relatable for me that it was kind of uncanny. Evie Wyld grew up in England and spent family trips in Australia, and she first found her love for sharks when her older brother was given a set of shark jaws for the holidays. She then started reading books about sharks, and shark attacks, her first celebrity crush being Rodney Fox, famed shark attack survivor and conservationist (another thing I can relate to, because I TOO loved Rodney Fox during my most fevered obsession time). But this memoir is a bit different from other graphic memoirs that I’ve read in the past, as instead of having a full linear narrative it’s more a collection of snapshots into her childhood, framed through the shark obsession. But the shark obsession and the anxieties that go with it, of course, speak to deeper childhood fears and worries, from isolation to familial loss. The irrational fear of sharks served as a tangible fear to stand in for the ones that Wyld couldn’t quite articulate at the time, and as a child who was also riddled with anxieties about just about everything, this, too, was a familiar thing to me as I read it.

You don’t get the events in her childhood spoon-fed to you, you have to surmise what is going on. During a viewing of “Jaws”, she recounts how her loving yet somewhat detached father drank glass after glass of wine. After being unable to sleep one Australian night, she and her mother go for a night swim in the pool, as her mother was dealing with one of her regular bouts of insomnia. When her older brother would come home from school bloodied and beaten up, he would come to Evie and ask her to tell him shark stories. We learn about Evie’s family and their pretty common issues, but always with the context of the love of, and fear of, sharks. It’s a quiet story that ultimately unwinds to show how these intangible fears ultimately become tangible as time goes on, and that a fear of sharks disguises a fear of loss that eventually most everyone will experience in their life. It is ultimately a sweet, and sad, story about a girl who comes of age like many do, and her childhood interest in sharks that shapes her along the way, and I found it just as powerful as some of the graphic memoirs I’ve read that deal with childhood trauma or tragedy. There is no specific trauma or tragedy here; it’s just bits of her life, some parts sad, some parts not, all parts incredibly real.

I also liked that even the bits that were sad or upsetting were still muted, letting the reader figure out why. There is a scene where Evie’s Dad takes her to a shark attack museum, thinking that she will enjoy it. What they find is a spectacle, with graphic photos of shark attack victims with no context (just showing Rodney Fox’s wounds, not his calm demeanor or how he persevered), broad brush strokes painting sharks as mindless man eaters, and a stuffed and shabby white pointer, which is Australian terminology for great white, that is decaying on it’s platform. Child Evie is awash with nausea and discomfort, and while it’s never explained why, the reader is as well. Wyld never has to tell you it’s wrong; you just know that it is.

Joe Sumner did the illustrations for this graphic novel, and I really loved his style. He has a huge range from the flat out cartoonish (Evie and her family members), to the more realistic (stills from “Jaws” and pictures of shark attack survivors in the aftermath), to the hyperrealistic that I could have sworn were photographs (almost all the sharks in this book). I was completely struck by this art style and how effective it was.

“Everything Is Teeth” is a very subdued read, but it’s one that struck a chord with me. If you are looking for a graphic memoir that isn’t necessarily steeped in tragedy and trauma, but still packs an emotional punch, it may be the one for you. show less

Thanks to a newly discovered YouTuber, Mercedes, I was made aware of what promised to be a very beautiful and interesting graphic novel by the name of Everything Is Teeth. Written by Evie Wyld and illustrated by Joe Sumner, this is the story of Evie's childhood obsession with sharks. It was the artwork that drew me in. Both cartoonish and realistic, the characters (most especially the sharks) seem to come to life with every turn of the page. The story follows her as she travels with her family to Australia to visit relatives and there her fascination with sharks truly blossoms. It's a rather surreal portrayal of a little girl who seems to live in a world which is invisible to all others. As she walks down the sidewalk to school what show more follows along in her wake? A shark. As she lounges on the couch why must she keep her legs from touching the floor? A shark. It's bizarre and at times slightly disjointed. I'm still not entirely sure I understood her relationship with her family or what exactly was going on with her brother. Maybe that's the point? I'd say this book is worth looking into for the artwork (not the cartoonish bits which I didn't really like as much) alone. However, I must caution that there are some rather gory bits if that's not your cup of tea. 😈 show less

A young girl becomes fascinated with sharks and casualties of shark attacks one Christmas on the coast of Australia. Back in England she maps her anxieties onto shark attacks and avoidance in a lava floor way. The art is simple but expressive with photo-realistic sections which even in b&w were too realistic - shark inflicted wounds - for me.

I don't think I gave Evie Wyld's book 'All the Birds, Singing' a fair review after reading. It's one of those books that have so many details that linger years later, you can't help but love it more as you remember the book. One of those amazing lingering images is the main character resting on the bottom of the ocean watching the outlines of sharks swimming above. Clearly, Wyld has a thing for sharks. This graphic memoir is everything sharky in Evie Wyld's childhood. This is also the first book that illustrator Joe Sumner has contributed to. The big-headed, small-bodied people in the illustrations should add a comic level to the realer looking sharks, but the shark drama terrifyingly takes over on each page. Little Evie becomes show more obsessed with sharks while in Australia: reading about them, visiting the Vic Hislop museum, and even fishing for sharks --one full of baby shark pups. I love that the image of Evie's brother looks like a young Neil Gaiman for some reason (any graphic novel fan could appreciate this, I think.) The art and narrative are both well done. 'Everything is Teeth' will be just as memorable years from now as 'All the Birds, Singing'. I'm happy to have this one alongside my small Evie Wyld book collection. I can't wait for more!
Thank you GoodReads for the ARC to review! show less

I thoroughly enjoyed this book-- enough that I will probably return to Barnes 'N Nobles and buy it. This was a quick read-- because the pictures told most of the story, and the text was so concisely and artfully crafted that the story flowed very smoothly. I wanted to read more and more! Joe Sumner, the illustrator, did a really cool thing when he made the main girl & her family in black and white drawing-form, and all of the sea creatures in colored, magazine-cut out/more realistic photographic form! The contrast really makes all of the sharks pop-- and they are the main focus of the book after all. I really related to this one, because the autistic 8-year-old boy that I work with is very obsessed with sharks and other marine animals. show more His mind works just like this girl's! show less

This book is strange and beautiful. This is for anyone who had anxiety or anxious fixations as a kid, who loves sea life, or is just a curious soul who likes to internet research the hell out of any topic they are currently interested in. This book is as much about pop culture and shark attacks as it is about the complexities, and sometimes blessings, of anxiety.

4.5 stars. A lovely memoir, both quiet and jarring, as childhood can be. As an anxious kid myself, I really resonated with the lurking dread, the belief that thinking about the Bad Thing makes it less likely to happen. There were hints of some family drama she wouldn't have been privy to at the time, and of course the kinship of the Dead Dads Club. Thanks to Shannon for sharing with me.