When Florence Welch recommends a book, I have to read it. ‘ To know the ocean, I have always felt, is to recognize the teeth it keeps half-hidden.’ As Miri searches for answers, desperate to understand what happened below the water, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp.īy turns elegiac and furious, wry and heartbreaking, Our Wives Under the Sea is an exploration of the unknowable depths within each of us, and the love that compels us nevertheless toward one another. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home. Barely eating and lost in her thoughts, Leah rotates between rooms in their apartment, running the taps morning and night.
When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong.
A marine biologist, she left for a routine expedition months earlier, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. heart-slicing, cinematic.Fathomlessly inventive and original, Julia Armfield’s Our Wives Under the Sea is a portrait of marriage as we’ve never seen it before. 'Part bruisingly tender love story, part nerve-clanging submarine thriller. Living in the same space but suddenly separate, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had might be gone. Memories of what they had before – the jokes they shared, the films they watched, all the small things that made Leah hers – only remind Miri of what she stands to lose. To have the woman she loves back should mean a return to normal life, but Miri can feel Leah slipping from her grasp. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home.
It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep, deep sea. Our Wives Under The Sea is the huanting debut novel Julia Armfiled, the critically acclaimed author of S alt Slow. ‘A gothic fairy tale, sublime in its creepiness’ - Florence Welch
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