Title: Our Wives Under the SeaAuthor: Julia Armfield
First Published: July 12, 2022
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Pages: 240
Genre: Horror, LGBTQ, Literary Fiction
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Rating:
Synopsis:
Leah is changed. A marine biologist, she left for a routine expedition months earlier, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong. Barely eating and lost in her thoughts, Leah rotates between rooms in their apartment, running the taps morning and night. 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. 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.
By 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.
Review
Our Wives Under the Sea is a grotesquely beautiful literary horror novel. This book didn’t contain the blood and gore of so much of the horror genre, but instead is a quiet but powerful piece of aquatic horror with touches of Lovecraft. The narrative makes allusions to folk tales of selkie wives, unable to return to sea without their seal skin.
The plot centers on a woman named Miri coming to terms with the loss of her wife, Leah, who seemingly came back wrong. The entire concept of a loved one coming back different is creepy and used to great effect. The story swings between the dual perspectives of Miri and Leah, from Miri’s present day discomfort with Leah’s strange behavior after returning from a disastrous deep sea mission, and Leah’s past on board a submarine that sank to unimaginable depths. Miri reminisces about the life and love that she shared with Leah, like a long goodbye.
I loved this novel beginning to end and had a hard time putting it down. The themes of grief and loss are keenly felt and incredibly horrifying. This is not a book that will provide any answers, if that wasn’t immediately obvious with the Lovecraft tag, it is very much a character-driven novel. It was beautiful and it’s made me an instant fan of Julia Armfield.
Quote
“It’s hard when you look up and realize that everyone’s moved off and left you in that place by yourself. Like they’ve all gone on and you’re there still, holding on to this person you’re supposed to let go of.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Julia Armfield
Julia Armfield is a fiction writer, living in London with her girlfriend who is fine and their cat who is garbage.
Her work has been published in Granta, The White Review, Best British Short Stories 2019 and 2021, Lighthouse and various other publications. She was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Prize 2018 and was the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize 2018. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. Her debut collection, salt slow, was longlisted for the Polari Prize 2020 and the Edge Hill Prize 2020 and was shortlisted for the London Magazine Prize for Debut Fiction 2020. Our Wives Under The Sea was shortlisted for the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year Award 2022. Her story ‘Longshore Drift’ won a Pushcart Prize in 2020.
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