Loved this book but I'm a big Willeford fan. Crazy title and cover that doesn't really match the book.

Willeford has long been considered the master of the Miami noir tale. He has a knack for creating some rather twisted characters with human foibles. The "Shark-Infested Custard" is a dip into the swinging singles scene of Miami in the early 1970's. The scene, at least to start, is a giant singles apartment complex - no families allowed. "They won't let two men share an apartment." But, the "rules are relaxed for women, and two women are allowed to share one apartment."It's the perfect place for

I was excited to read this one as I was very impressed with Pick-Up, the first book I read by Charles Willeford. And, though this one doesn't feature the classic noir feel of the aforementioned book, it's still worth a read.Willeford 's tale is set in the swingin' seventies (before herpes raised its ugly head), and is more a tale of playboys on the make than a crime novel. I was somewhat horrified by the way the four male characters talk about women (though maybe it's very realistic - I don't kn...

Okay, so I loved this, but I can't decide whether to give it three or four stars. It lost some steam towards the end, and also I felt like a book that's told from the perspective of four different people needs to make a stronger and more successful effort to differentiate their voices.... BUT, this ruled and I really did enjoy reading it. For some reason it reminded me of Jacqueline Susann, but for/about men instead of women, and set in the seventies.I recently got into a really embarrassing fig...

The book from which Tarantino lifted Vincent Vegas gun accidentally going off on Marvin scene.

From 1972When this is good it is very good. Unfortunately, it happens in only a quarter of the novel. Brilliant, boring, strange.

If someone reads this book and doesn't think of Elmore Leonard's novels, he or she hasn't read Elmore Leonard. The setting and the substance are pure Leonard. I'll give Willeford (on my first foray into his work) credit for a great imagination and for his no bullshit realism. But Willeford seems less focused on the crime and its aftermath than Leonard always is. Willeford wrote The Shark-Infested Custard in 1993, but it feels as if it's set in the 70's, with the sexual revolution fresh in the ai...

Written in the 1970s and published posthumously in 1993, this ambitious Florida novel was Mr. Willeford's longest book (per the rear cover's copy). The loose plot follows the fates of four male friends as they cover up a murder, chase skirts, and get each others backs. Cast in a noirish tone, Custard offers a great deal more. It's social gaze at surviving in hot, nasty Florida, entertaining us with the story's wicked, satirical, and humorous turns. I've read a few of Mr. Willeford's books and st...

Well this was kind of all over the place as a novel, it's really just a series of incidents in the lives of these four single Miami playas, the kind of guys in the 70's who wore pantsuits, hit on stewardesses, drank chivas in their shagpads, and voted Nixon. So, because this is told from their persp, it is quite douchey, but it is fairly charming with it, and willeford is clearly twisting our kahunas with these guys, and enjoying himself. Still though, not cool, probably.

The four stories about four Miami, Florida, friends could have been 400. I would have followed them anywhere. Where they took me was immoral, unethical, but never unpleasant. They're such good company for a group of psychopaths. Not that they seemed like madmen: all were hardworking professionals (though they weren't really), all were decent members of society (though they weren't really) and were fun-loving loyal friends (those they weren't really). The writing is rich in detail, those details

Some people mistake first person narratives as the voice of the writer. Those people also usually think that the characters represent ideas the author actually believes and wants to express as his own. Then, there are people who actually know how to read. These people know that characters, even the POV character are not the author and that with good authors, sometimes the discomfort the author is giving you through a POV character is the point. If you don’t get that or don’t believe that, don’t

Charles Willeford felt that The Shark-Infested Custard was his masterpiece. The novel centers around four men who become friends because they all live in a Miami apartment building that caters to singles. Beyond this, the main things they have in common are a creepy crassness and an interest in the finer points of getting laid. Willeford described The Shark-Infested Custard as "a fairly nasty picture of so-called ordinary young men who are making it down here." Thus, the challenge facing Willefo...

An odd novel about 4 unpleasant sleazebags in '70's Miami. Odd in that these are four guys no one in their right mind would want to be stuck with for any length of time longer than it takes to shoot a game of 8-Ball. That said, it is an interesting depiction of 70's mores within the more savage of the singles. Willeford doesn't pull punches and stays true to his characters. For that I admired it.

Charles Willeford wrote “The Shark-Infested Custard” in 1975 but couldn’t get it published because it was considered too depressing; in fact, it’s pretty close to perfect.Willeford is best known for his Hoke Moseley novels which were published in the 1980s. The Moseley novels are more police procedural than noir (but, nevertheless very good), but “The Shark-Infested Custard” is pure noir. There are four protagonists. The novel is divided into four interlocking stories, each with one of the four

The subtitle "A Novel" isn't quite a goddamn lie, but it's close. It's more like a set of four semiconnected short stories / novellas centered on a group of four guys making the most of the singles lifestyle in 1970s Miami. A pharmaceutical salesman, a private security operative, an airline pilot and the henpecked middleman for a luxury silverware firm, they run the gamut from cocksure shitheels to hopelessly deluded fuck-ups. Abandoning wives and lovers, committing grand theft, covering up the

Four self-absorbed, womanizing, borderline sociopathic bachelors inhabit this novel. There's raunchy sexual content, burst of violence and sprinkles of racism. Set in the Miami of the 1970's which makes some details seem dated. Best enjoyed by middle-aged men and I get the sense that women will not find this novel cute, endearing or funny.An oddly structured novel, with lots of descriptive filler as though the author just wanted to hit a word count; then again lots of authors seem to do that--wh...

Quite a shift from his tighter genre-observant Hoke Moseley novels, SHARK reads like some of Willeford's other writing (e.g., BURNT-ORANGE HERESY) that exploreS the lives of outcasts and sociopaths. This novel,a sort of seedy neon Miami extreme of that type, is neither a traditional noir nor a play on the conventions of noir, but it's a compelling read anyway. The novel feels fragmentary--or a bit unfinished--and I have wondered about the circumstances of its publication. I found it a good, if i...

Completely chilling, more in the contrast between its banality and the casual violence, though the violence is real enough in this humid Miami of the lower white-collar worker with aspirations and rampant masculinity. Interchangeable stewardesses abound, nubile sex-starved Cubans too, the man certainly has one use for women. But it's a hard book to put down; the characters may be unlikeable but they are certainly unforgettable. And the neighborhood grocery store owner with 27 hits under his belt...

Leisure suits and swinger life...take a trip back to the seventies with Willeford's classic. I love this one. Reminds me of a more laid back version of Ellis' American Psycho, only these guys are a little more likeable and realistic. Good ole American consumerism and fashion sense thinly veil an inner soullessness that quickly lashes out into homicide. But these guys aren't serial killers, heck no. Just regular normal guys out for a good time. Likeable creeps all too similar to real people. Yike...

Mine seems to be the minority opinion here on Goodreads, but that's okay. I think this novel is brilliant and here's why: Willeford gives us a very tense situation between four friends after making a bet with one another. Then we get a look at each of these guys individually, learning why they act and live the way they do. As these four sections sheds light on each character, we begin to understand how they became friends, why they've stuck together, and how the implications of their predicament...

It's a very well-woven story that rewards patience because it doesn't really start to come together until about 2/3 of the way through. It's also quite cutting and clever at times, which is appealing. That said, none of the four central characters is remotely appealing (by intent, one assumes), and the casual racism and rampaging misogyny are pretty hard to take, even if they are somewhat accurate representations of mid-1970s attitudes.

the greatest american novel of the last 50 years? well ... certainly one of the most rabidly depressing and a real curveball from one of my fave writers ... i always thought there was a mainline from lermontov to willeford ....

Miami in the 70s! Dexies, shag carpet, misogyny: it was a simpler time.

Holy fuck Willeford, where have you been all my life. This is sick and, twisted, nihilistic psycho noir and I loved it.

"The Shark-Infested Custard" was an interesting read with its multiple narrator perspective. I expected Willeford to concentrate on the National Security guy Larry because he is the professional with a gun, and most noirs have a formulaic protagonist. Instead, he defied my expectations and gave lion's share of the narrative to Hank the drug salesman. The episode involving Hank Norton, the notorious hairy armpits dame Jannaire, and Mr. Wright refreshed my waning interest after the quartet of guys...

I really liked The Shark-Infested Custard by Charles Willeford.....I've read most of Willeford's books over the years and liked them all....I recently came across Custard and I had never heard of it. It turns out he wrote it in the '70's and was told by his editors/publishers it was a bummer of a story, so he put it on the shelf. Black Lizard released Custard posthumously in the early '90's and some-how-or-another I missed it until now. Yeah, I thought it was really, really good, maybe my favori...

It's all in the title here. This novel is about four successful WASPS in the 60's with cushy lives getting away with murder. The things I enjoy about Willeford's writings are here including macho posturing, fussy attention to detail when it comes to clothing, and an almost dreamlike and absurd absence of consequences for the most part. It's obviously male fantasy to the extremes of "that's not bait you just threw the damn pole in" bait. The two characters making the most money admit often and pr...

If you want to read a detailed glimpse into masculinity circa 1972 then do I have the book for you! I think if you go into it expecting crazy, then you won't be so freaked out by the rampant misogyny, casual racist and homophobic comments, and general "What on Earth!?" behaviors. An added bonus is all the incredibly dated early 70's references that I guess read as fresh and modern and edgy 50 years ago. 13 year old drug addicted girl in hot pants - check! Visit to porno theater - check! A threes...

Oh but the clothes!!!What a nasty group of people – bad company indeed in the hands of a lesser writer. I do love Willeford's prose: the specificity of time and place, the consistency of tone and characterization. The seamy, misogynistic underside of seventies dating culture is a perfect setting for his selfish and amoral characters. I also have a weakness for any novel set in Miami. However, this seems less like a novel than a series of interconnected short stories. It lacks an overall narrativ...

There's good Willeford (Pick-up, Wild Wives, Miami Blues), flabby Willeford (The Burnt-Orange Heresy, Sideswipe) and then there's The Shark-Infested Custard. Apparently the man thought this was his best novel. He was wrong.It's hard to explain how banal and-frankly-offensive this novel is. It's about four friends in Miami and their various misdeeds, but the whole thing is blatantly sexist and racist in the most demeaning ways. Furthermore, there's no narrative tension whatsoever and the various