Peter Benchley's 1974 thriller — about a great white shark terrorizing a beach town — which became one of the best-selling thrillers of all time and the source material for Spielberg's Jaws (1975), the first modern blockbuster.
Creates the summer blockbuster source material — Benchley's Jaws provided the story that Spielberg adapted into the film that invented the concept of the wide-release summer blockbuster; the book itself is significant as a thriller but its cultural impact is primarily through the Spielberg film.
No recorded contemporaries.
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