Shark Drunk

A salty story of friendship, adventure, and the explosive life that teems beneath the ocean
 
The Lofoten archipelago, just North of the Arctic Circle, is a place of unsurpassed beauty—the skyline spikes with dramatic peaks; the radiant greens and purples of the Northern Lights follow summers where the sun never sets. It’s a place of small villages, where the art of fishing, though evolving, is still practiced in traditional ways.

Beneath the great depths surrounding these islands lurks the infamous Greenland shark. At twenty-four feet in length and weighing more than a ton, it is truly a beast to behold. But the shark is not known just for its size: Its meat contains a toxin that, when consumed, has been known to make people drunk and hallucinatory. Shark Drunk is the true story of two friends, the author and the eccentric artist Hugo Aasjord, as they embark on a wild pursuit of the famed creature—all from a tiny rubber boat.

Together they tackle existential questions and encounter the world’s most powerful maelstrom as they attempt to understand the ocean from every possible angle, drawing on poetry, science, history, ecology, mythology, and their own—sometimes intoxicated—observations, meanwhile pursuing the elusive Greenland shark. By turns thrilling, wise, and hilarious, Shark Drunk is a celebration of adventure, marine life, and, above all, friendship.

Winner of the Norwegian Brage Prize 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Critics’ Prize for Literature 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Reine Ord Prize at Lofoten International Literature Festival 2016

“An epic fishing trip reels in fascinating sea lore in this briny eco-adventure. . . .  The author ponders everything related to the ocean, including bizarre luminous squids of the inky depths, frolicking orca pods and sperm whales, ancient disquisitions on maritime monsters, flinty islanders who live off the sea, and the close, testy relationships between fishing friends. Strøksnes’s erudition, salty humor, and unfussy prose yield a fresh, engrossing natural history.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“Accomplished Norwegian historian, journalist, and photographer Strøksnes invites readers into the fantastical ocean environment of his quest to capture a Greenland shark. . . . readers will happily devour this smorgasbord of delights.”—Kirkus

“Move over, Ishmael. Move over, Jonah. Move over, Izaak Walton and Norman Maclean. Make room for a fish tale, wry and fantastical, weird and melancholy, that must now take its rightful place among our classic existential stories about the denizens of the deep.”—Hampton Sides, bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice

“Some great quests defy any logical explanation but by virtue of their whimsical turns lead to unexpected wonder and enlightenment. Morton Strøksnes’ Shark Drunk is one such quest—the hunt for what might be called the world’s largest “trash fish”—that transports us with humor and insight to forbidding coasts and unexplored depths.”—Peter Stark, author of Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire     

“Shark Drunk is a beautifully crafted, slyly funny meditation on friendship, nature, history, literature, and most of all, the sea. That, and a gripping adventure tale about a hunt for a flesh-eating, razor-skinned sea monster. I don’t know how Morten Strøksnes makes it work, but he does, brilliantly.”—Mitchell Zuckoff, New York Times bestselling author of 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi

“The Greenland shark is the bait.  Not quite a red herring, and certainly not the reeking bull flesh used at one point as a lure, this enormous, ancient, toxic shark that Morten Strøksnes and his friend Hugo pursue through the seasons in northern Norway is nonetheless a snare and a delusion. The point is not to catch the fish. It’s the phantasmagoric journey, both ultra-vivid and laconic, through the history and natural history of a remarkable region, its teeming seas and tough, resourceful locals. Hugo, a painter, mixes his paints from oil harvested from the livers of cod they catch while chasing the great shark.  Strøksnes weaves his tale from a dense wool of close observation, fishing yarns, erudition lightly worn, and a helpless, consuming love of the ocean.”—William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

“With the open-minded inquisitiveness of Charles Darwin and the obsession of Captain Ahab, Morten Strøksnes heads out to sea, chasing a monster of the deep known as the Greenland shark. Every page of Shark Drunk feels like a cabinet of curiosities, filled with head-scratching surprises, nuggets of wisdom, and wondrous insights. Gorgeously written and thoroughly addictive.”—Michael Finkel, bestselling author of The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

“Morten Strøksnes has enriched the world with a book of highly unusual originality. . . . As a reader I take the bait and get firmly stuck to the hook.”—Fredrik Sjöberg, author of The Fly Trap

National Media Appearances, including NPR and print featuresOnline Interviews, Reviews, and Literary Blog CoverageMen's Magazine and Blog CoverageCoverage in and on Outdoor and Nature Publications and SitesOnline Advertising Campaign, including PBS.org, the Litbreaker Network, and outdoor and nature sites
Facebook Advertising Campaign, targeting fans of outdoor and nature publications, the Discovery Channel, Shark Week, PBS's NatureShark Tank, Maritime Museums, Man vs Wild; fans of Cheryl Strayed, Sebastian Junger, Bill BrysonJacket Blowups Available