The next book to be featured this season on the Sara Cox Radio 2 Book Club is Under Water by Tara Menon—a stunning and deeply moving debut of grief, loss and female friendship, set against the backdrop of two cataclysmic natural events.
The book was released on 12 March and Tara’s interview with Sara is on BBC Sounds from Tuesday 31 March.
Read an exclusive extract.
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Under Water
When five-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 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 Hurricane Sandy to make landfall, Marissa reflects on her past. Can she learn to sustain herself in a precarious world – or will she succumb to her demons?
About the author
Tara Menon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Harvard University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Nation, Paris Review and Public Books, where she co-edits the Literary Fiction section. Tara was born in India, grew up in Singapore, spent a decade in New York, and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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