Under Water
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By Tara Menon
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1 review
‘Compelling and heart wrenching, a remarkable debut’ Claire Messud
A stunning and deeply moving literary debut of grief, loss and female friendship, set against the backdrop of two cataclysmic natural events.
When six-year-old Marissa loses her mother, she is taken by her father to live on a small Thai island in the Andaman Sea. There, she forms a deep friendship with Arielle and together they explore the fragile wonders of its forests, reefs, and beaches. Holding their breath for minutes at a time, they learn to dive into the deep, as effortlessly synchronized as the manta rays they come to know by name. Then, on Boxing Day 2004, when the Indian Ocean tsunami makes landfall, they are swept up by the first wave and separated.
Eight years later, Marissa is living in New York. She spends her days wandering through the city and her nights seeking solace in the beds of strangers. As the city prepares for a devastating storm, Marissa reflects on her past and learns how to sustain herself in a precarious world.
Under Water is a story about friendship and grief, but also ecological change and natural disasters. It is a meditation on loss, a tribute to our dying oceans and forests, and a love letter to the disappearing coral reefs.
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This is a stunning debut novel. The writing is sensitive, beautiful, lyrical, and full of emotion. It follows Marissa as she contemplates her grief after the Boxing Day tsunami while awaiting the arrival of a huge storm in New York. It traces the days and relationships in the approach to the tsunami and the event is written as briefly and devastatingly as the event must surely have been, not shying away from the horror of the aftermath but not dwelling on or seeking mawkish sympathy. This makes the account all the more impactful.
Menon's writing is vivid, creating atmosphere, especially in its descriptions of the ocean and diving expeditions. I have read some criticism of the dual timelines but I appreciated the echoes of the past in the present New York sections and it added to Marissa's grief. Overall a well-written emotional read worth every sentence that has clearly been carefully crafted.
Thank you to @readingagency, @simonandschuster and @bbcradio2 for our book club copies. We have published reviews across GoodReads, Storygraphy, Amazon, Instagram and with our local indie bookshops.
